William S. Burroughs Gets In the Last Word

Until the end, William S. Burroughs shuddered at the thought of a world without drugs and railed against the politicians trying to ban them.

The latest issue of the New Yorker contains excerpts from journals kept by the Beat Generation author and former heroin addict in which he criticizes Newt Gingrich and other politicians he blamed for trying to make American life “banal.”

“That vile salamander Gingrich, squeaker of the House, is slobbering about a drug-free America by the year 2001,” Burroughs wrote about two months before his Aug. 2 death at age 83.

“What a dreary prospect! . . . No dope fiends, just good, clean-living decent Americans from sea to shining sea,” he wrote on May 31. “How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.”

The author of “Naked Lunch” also praised Beat poet Allen Ginsberg for struggling against censorship to challenge the mores of American society. “Allen made holes in the Big Lie not only with his poetry but with his presence, his self-evident spiritual truth,” he wrote on May 25.

Ginsberg died April 5. “I thought I would be terrified, but I am exhilarated,” Burroughs recalled his friend saying.

The day before Burroughs died, he wrote his last entry, which was printed on cards and distributed among the 250 mourners at his funeral in Lawrence, Kan.

“Love? What is it? Most natural painkiller. What there is. LOVE.”