Exploring Burroughs’ impact on rock ‘n’ roll
White Rabbit has acquired William S Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘N’ Roll by Casey Rae, publishing this September.
Lee Brackstone, publisher at White Rabbit, said: “Casey Rae’s book is a future pop culture classic which situates the Hip Priest of the Beat Generation at the heart of the rock ‘n’ roll narrative. As we build a new list of music-related titles at White Rabbit we intend to complement a frontlist dominated by hard-hitting memoirs such as Mark Lanegan’s bestseller with the literary history of the culture that created these artists. This is essential reading for anyone interested in Burroughs and you finish the book in the firm knowledge rock ‘n’ roll would look very different and much less exciting without his influence.”
William S. Burroughs and the Cult of Rock ‘n’ Roll
by Casey Rae
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 can be traced to Burroughs.
A heroin addict and a gay man, Burroughs rose to notoriety outside the conventional literary world; his masterpiece, Naked Lunch, was banned on the grounds of obscenity, but its nonlinear structure was just as daring as its content. Casey Rae brings to life Burroughs's parallel rise to fame among daring musicians of the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, when it became a rite of passage to hang out with the author or to experiment with his cut-up techniques for producing revolutionary lyrics (as the Beatles and Radiohead did). Whether they tell of him exploring the occult with David Bowie, providing Lou Reed with gritty depictions of street life, or counseling Patti Smith about coping with fame, the stories of Burroughs's backstage impact will transform the way you see America's cultural revolution-and the way you hear its music.
