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William Burroughs’s closest friends often saw him scribbling in the bound journal books that accumulated until there were eight of them, but he was a bit secretive about their contents. He did turn over one book to Jim McCrary to be typed up, and he made some editing marks on the transcription; this shows that he knew the journals would someday be published. (Selections from that typed journal were published in The New Yorker just after William’s death, as “Last Words.”) In late August 1997 Jim offered to transcribe the handwritten journals, and I was content for him to do that because I was not yet ready to face their contents, in William’s familiar scrawl—“dead fingers talk.”

I procrastinated reviewing Jim’s transcription until the spring of 1999, when I finally felt up to the sad task of reading my best friend’s last testament. Rather than silently correct mistakes of spelling or sense, I used brackets to insert short clarifications, or to indicate words and passages that remained illegible after my best efforts to decipher them. In the subsequent editing process (with Ira Silverberg’s help), I cut about 5 percent of the material, primarily for reasons of privacy or because of excessive repetition. Following William’s text in this volume is a set of editor’s notes, arranged chronologically, providing additional background and explanation of his many references that would otherwise be obscure.

I must gratefully acknowledge the patience of my editors at Grove Press during this process, and especially Ira Silverberg, who signed this book for Grove and who encouraged and gently prodded me over the two years that it has taken me to complete it. Jim McCrary’s original transcription was a tremendous help, and a preliminary text-comparison review by Aaron Howard was also helpful. Barry Miles offered valuable corrections to my editor’s notes. I was traveling for a long time while working on this book, and for their hospitality on the road I am especially grateful to: Diane de Rooy in Seattle; Gus Van Sant in Portland; Kathelin Gray in Berkeley; Stanley and Elyse Grinstein in Malibu; Steven Lowe in Truth or Consequences, N.M.; Mark Henning in Chicago; and Robert Lococo in St. Louis. For their ongoing assistance in the management of the many literary and artistic materials that William left behind, I am pleased to thank Andrew Wylie and Jeffrey Posternak at The Wylie Agency.