Before reading this book my only knowledge of William S. Burroughs were the handful of books I've read by him and a casual glance at his Wikipedia page. This book is a great look into the life of Burroughs with a focus on his encounters with notable musicians of the late 20th century. A lot of these accounts and interactions were things I had never seen or heard about anywhere else. For that reason I would definitely recommend this book to anyone interested in modern music; as its clear Burroughs' influence has been underrated and rarely credited otherwise.

While reading this book I noticed a lot of repetition of information and oversimplification at times that really detracted from the flow of the narrative. There were plenty of times where different people, events, or facts were brought up as if for the first time (even though they had already been mentioned in a previous chapter). It was as if these chapters were all written separately without much consideration as to how they would flow together. While this didn't ruin my reading experience it definitely was a noticeable annoyance. I also wish the author would have gone more into the concept of "cut ups" as an influence on our modern culture as it was a fascinating subject but one that never felt fully explored.