The Western Lands was published by Viking Press in 1987. It is the final book of a late Burroughs trilogy that began with Cities of the Red Night (1981) and The Place of Dead Roads (1983) and is a fitting conclusion to it in terms of scope and vision. Different from Cities of the Red Night and Place of Dead Roads, the book recognizes the impossibility of really escaping our broken condition unless we radically reimagine ourselves. Norman Mailer’s The Book of the Dead was a source of inspiration for the book, and the content of The Western Lands is bold and wide-ranging. The author handles a number of issues throughout the narrative. Fragments are autobiographical, and show t…
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Citation: Weidner, Chad. "The Western Lands". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 31 August 2011 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8129, accessed 24 November 2024.]
