Speed and Kentucky Ham

A pair of autobiographical novels with “a compelling narrative that balances the methedrine horrors with the outcast’s romantic search for identity" (Rolling Stone).

William S. Burroughs, Jr.—son of the legendary outlaw author of Naked Lunch—often felt he was “cursed from birth.” Following in his father’s footstep in tragically uncanny ways, Burroughs chronicled his own experiences in the novels Speed and Kentucky Ham. Each presents a methedrine-inspired odyssey, and a vision of alienated youth at its most raw and uncensored.

Speed follows Billy as he hustles for dope and money, crashing in garbage-strewn apartments and guiding a paranoid friend through the perilous city streets. With tough, gritty detachment, he describes the stages of his own drug addiction and physical and emotional deterioration.

Kentucky Ham takes him from the squalor of the East Village crash pads to his father's literary hideaway in Tangier, and finally to incarceration at the Federal Narcotics Hospital in Lexington, Kentucky. Through both these autobiographical novels, William S. Burroughs, Jr., tells a story of generational isolation that is as relevant today as when it was first written.

© 1993 Abrams Press (Ebook): 9781468302127

Release date

Ebook: 1 October 1993