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Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs
Joan Vollmer was the common law wife of William S Burroughs and
the mother of his son, William S. Burroughs Jr. Burroughs infamously
shot and killed Joan Vollner in Mexico City in 1951 while doing their "William
Tell routine". This involved Burroughs shooting a glass off Joan's head. The film "Beat" is built
around this episode. Joan's death made Burroughs aware of the "Ugly Spirit" which
sometimes took possession of him. By his own account, Joan's death made Burroughs
a Writer. He spent the rest of his life trying to "write out" the "Ugly Spirit"
. This involved a process of calling the spirit by name through immaculate
descriptions of him and his works. Burroughs formally studied Anthropology
at one time and was very much focused on the magical aspects of writing;
on writing not as description or representation but as evocation or conjuration.
Burroughs wanted not to describe reality but to transform it through the
production of works of literary art that would pour off the page and
become not representations but realities in their own right.