Another day, another series of reviews of William S. Burroughs bks. Bet you didn't know that there're so many! (Ok, you old timers know, but you young'uns didn't) I'm sure I read this just b/c I'd been reading about it for so long that by the time I finally scored a copy I was probably eager for another Burroughs fix. HOWEVER, I think this fell into the category of "read-so-many-Burroughs-bks-that-they're-like reruns-to-me-now" so this one gets a 3 even though, as usual, it's probably brimming over w/ gen-i-us or toys-r-us or something. ( )

An interesting lesser Burroughs novel, Port of Saints is both a sequel to The Wild Boys and a foretaste of WSB's late-period masterpiece Cities of the Red Night. It begins with an eerily fascinating premise which, unfortunately, the author fails to develop. (This will hardly surprise inveterate readers of Burroughs, but he seems to have realized the need for greater narrative coherence by the time he wrote Cities.) But even when this book frustrates or begins to feel redundant, it's loaded with the kind of sad, ghostly imagery that only Burroughs could conjure: "Somewhere a long time ago the summer ended. Old pulp magazines on the white steps. (...) Last time together last dust of hope out there in the blue flight of adolescence on the road of the Stranger." This is why we read WSB (those of us who make it past the obligatory inaugural shock of Naked Lunch, that is), and Port of Saints will not disappoint you if you're a fan. Note: Burroughs occasionally employs the cut-up technique here, but judiciously and not in the daunting, almost unreadable manner of his Cut-Up Trilogy. ( )

With Burroughs it's always about *how* he tells the story. If he's got you confused, there's poetry in those eyes that he fires up at you so get ready. My favorite is still _The Wild Boys_, but I haven't read all of him yet. ( )

it could have cut down on the descriptions of all the different boys dicks and included more time traveling and murder, but overall i'd have to say this is a pretty tight book ( )