Rub Out the Words

“Burroughs’s voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American.”
—Joan Didion

“Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.”
—Jack Kerouac

Carefully edited from more than 1000 of his personal correspondences, Rub Out the Words is a collection of 300 of the best letters of Naked Lunch author William S. Burroughs, written between 1959 and 1974. A truly remarkable compendium, it offers an eye-opening and insightful look into the artistic process and complex personal life of the legendary literary outlaw in the post-Beat era—providing a new understanding and appreciation of an author who stood alongside Paul Bowles and Charles Bukowski as one of the most creative and rebellious American artists of the 20th century.