Don’t Hide the Madness: William S. Burroughs in Conversation With Allen Ginsberg

Don’t Hide the Madness is the transcript of conversations between Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs in Lawrence, Kansas in the Spring of 1992. Ginsberg, always pursuing the detailed documentation of personal and literary history, tape recorded and photographed the visit as the two friends of 50 years discussed their literary influences and personal history. The visit coincided with the shamanic exorcism of the demon that Burroughs believed had caused him to fatally shoot his common law wife, Joan Vollmer Burroughs, in 1951 – the event that Burroughs believed drove his work as a writer. Here Ginsberg gives his detailed account of the exorcism ceremony on the morning after he participated in it. Some sixteen hours of audio are represented, along with photographs revealing Burroughs’s daily activities from his dining room and painting studio to the shooting range. Don’t Hide the Madness presents an important, hitherto unpublished primary document of the Beat Generation.