In the late months of 1949, aspiring American writer William S Burroughs evaded gun and drug charges in the United States by bringing his family to Mexico where he planned to study while waiting out the statute of limitations on his crimes. Burroughs’ letters describe the early days after their arrival – settling in the fashionable Roma district of Mexico City, kicking his dope habit and immersing himself in the raucous expat community – with a kind of euphoria.
Two years later, Burroughs was once again deep in the grip of heroin and prone to violent, pistol-waving outbursts. His marriage was in shambles. His wife, Joan Vollmer, was lost in depression, illness and alcoholism, driven to deterioration by her own demons and the rigours of her unhappy, abusive relationship with husband “Bill”.
One stormy evening on September 6, 1951, the couple joined their usual coterie of literary drunks in an apartment above the rowdy bar they frequented. At first it was a typical get-together – lots of alcohol and drivel – but the situation changed abruptly when Burroughs produced a gun, announced “It’s time for our William Tell act”, and told Vollmer to place a glass on her head as a target. He then shot her in the temple.
Burroughs murdered his wife before going on to become one of the most influential figures in American literature. Vollmer – once a central personality in the emerging literary and cultural movement known as the Beat Generation – rests in a pauper’s grave on the edge of Mexico City to this day.
Now with the release of the movie Queer – an adaptation of Burroughs’ semi-autobiographical novel about a gay man immersed in the seedier side of Mexico City – there is renewed interest in the author, particularly his time in Latin America. Although it wasn’t published until 1985, Burroughs began early drafts of Queer shortly before shooting Vollmer, and many of its scenes were drawn directly from their tumultuous marriage and the toxic circumstances surrounding it.
With the book’s protagonist played by one of Hollywood’s leading actors, Daniel Craig, the film has brought a new wave of celebration to Burroughs’ work, accurately posing him as a pioneer in queer representation. But as groundbreaking as his writing may have been, a wall lined with mostly unmarked graves in Mexico City stands as a haunting reminder of a darker side to Burroughs’ legacy.
