Rae, Casey: William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n‘ Roll

‘If you simply follow Burroughs through the rock ‘n‘ roll years you‘ll see him achieve a flickering ubiquity - lurking here, eavesdropping there, photobombing the whole parade. It becomes a kind of alternative history‘ NEW YORK TIMES Reissued with a new Foreword as part of White Rabbit‘s prestigious Deep Cuts series, William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n‘ Roll tells the story of a man Patti Smith described as ‘up there with the pope‘ through the prism of his impact on pop music. William S. Burroughs‘s fiction and essays are legendary, but his influence on music‘s counterculture has been less well documented - until now. Examining how one of America‘s most controversial literary figures altered the destinies of many notable and varied musicians, William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n‘ Roll reveals the transformations in music history that followed in his wake. ‘Casey Rae‘s book is a labour of love that offers a map to understanding Burroughs‘ complex relationship to music and other art forms‘ CHRIS STEIN, co-founder of BLONDIE