Burroughs?

[Toby Levy]

Michael,

Thank you ever so much!  Folks, this is what we old gray haired folks
call "documentation."  That's all I was looking for. Now I understand
where the blogger was coming from and have nothing to dispute.  For
the records, I thought Junky was pretty good. It was his ensuing works
that I thought were shoddy.

Toby

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 10:03 PM, Michael Bailey
<michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com> wrote:
> spermatikos logos -- 2 stories on this page, probably familiar to most
> here, the 2nd uses a pseudonym, Ervin...and mentions Burroughs...
>
> http://www.themodernword.com/pynchon/pynchon_biography.html
>
> Not only was Ervin open and generous, he also was somewhat protective
> of my youthful morals. I say this because while he was working on his
> third massive novel with all its layered transparencies, I noticed he
> was holding in hand a copy of Junky (1953) by William S. Burroughs.
> When I asked to look at the book. Ervin refused my request bluntly,
> but he was just trying to be kind, as if he were trying to preserve my
> innocence. He told me I wasn't ready for this kind of book. I caught a
> glimpse of the title and sometime later I read the sinister lines
> about anal fixations bent over in a public restroom with a bar of
> soap, getting a fix on patches of skin out of public view. Not only
> did I read the book, but had the occasion, about 30 years later, to
> smoke one with its old beady-eyed author, the man with a quirk of a
> smile and a quiet mien. Ervin had been right to protect my mind from
> the sordid depths!