![]() ![]() Both Junkie and Narcotic Agent have covers of beautiful garishness, featuring 1950s damsels in distress. ![]() Despite its subhead, Wyn did think the book had a redemptive capability, as the protagonist made efforts to free himself of his addiction, but he also insisted that Burroughs preface the work with an autobiographical sketch that would explain to the reader how it was that someone such as himself – a Harvard graduate from a Social Register family – came to be a drug addict. Since, in the hysterical, anti-drug culture of postwar America, potential censure could easily induce self-censorship, it's remarkable that Junky (as it was published under his own name) found a publisher at all. ![]() The two-books-in-one format was not uncommon in 1950s America, but besides the obvious similarity in subject matter, AA Wyn, Burroughs' publisher, felt that he had to balance such an unapologetic account of drug addiction with an abridgement of the memoirs of a Federal Bureau of Narcotics agent, which originally appeared in 1941. ![]() E ntitled Junkie: Confessions of an Unredeemed Drug Addict and authored pseudonymously by "William Lee" (Burroughs' mother's maiden name – he didn't look too far for a nom de plume), the Ace original retailed for 35 cents, and as a "Double Book" was bound back-to-back with Narcotic Agent by Maurice Helbrant. ![]()
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