“Burroughs’s voice is hard, derisive, inventive, free, funny, serious, poetic, indelibly American.â€
—Joan Didion
“Burroughs is the greatest satirical writer since Jonathan Swift.â€
—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.