The Cat Inside

Best known for the wild, phantasmagoric satire of works like Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs reveals another, gentler side in The Cat Inside. Originally published as a limited-edition volume, this moving and witty discourse on cats combines deadpan routines and dream passages with a heartwarming account of Burroughs's unexpected friendships with the many cats he has known. It is also a meditation on the long, mysterious relationship between cats and their human hosts, which Burroughs traces back to the Egyptian cult of the "animal other." With its street sense and whiplash prose, The Cat Inside is a genuine revelation for Burroughs fans and cat lovers alike.

Burroughs is best known for the wild, phantasmagoric satire of Naked Lunch, but he has another side. America's leading literary outlaw writes with unexpected tenderness and signature intensity about his, and our, "animal others"--a meditation on the long, mysterious relationship between cats and their human hosts. Endpaper drawings.

Best known for the wild, phantasmagoric satire of works like Naked Lunch, William S. Burroughs reveals another, gentler side in The Cat Inside. Originally published as a limited-edition volume, this moving and witty discourse on cats combines deadpan routines and dream passages with a heartwarming account of Burroughs's unexpected friendships with the many cats he has known. It is also a meditation on the long, mysterious relationship between cats and their human hosts, which Burroughs traces back to the Egyptian cult of the "animal other." With its street sense and whiplash prose, The Cat Inside is a genuine revelation for Burroughs fans and cat lovers alike.

"The Cat Inside is about how Burroughs's contact with cats put him in touch with himself. Cats have changed his dreams; they are psychic guides who have allowed his wounded inner child to come out." (Harper's Bazaar)

"Burroughs's book is about cats the way The Grapes of Wrath is about fruit. . . . These are haunting images, from dreams, memory and present day, ranging from unabashed affection to outrage and indignation." (Los Angeles Times)

A wanderer and a literary experimentalist, William S. Burroughs is the Beat writer who outlived most of his contemporaries to become the literary symbol of a dispossessed, rock n' roll mentality. His rollercoaster existence made for good semifictional reading, but he also innovated the narrative form with his fragmentary, brash style.