Who's going to write the first proper biography of William S. Burroughs? El Hombre Invisible died in 1997. Eleven years later there exists no classical biography. Ted Hughes and Victor Bockris both knew their subjects in private life. I don't have a problem with people who write about a living person talking to him/her. In Fred Kaplan's case, when writing his earnest respectable doorstop Gore Vidal, it was undoubtedly a legal necessity. ( I do have a problem with people writing bios of non-dead subjects but that's a different entry. Hello Mr. Hamilton.)
I've read part of an online extract by James Grauerholz, WSB's Boswell and Jeeves, of an investigation into what really happened in Mexico the day Joan Vollmer Burroughs was shot. Verrry interesting but True Crime not Biography. This entry may be in vain. Perhaps one of my readers - or both of them - will comment.Who knows?
