Ghost of Chance

Last updated
Ghost of Chance
GhostOfChance.jpg
1995 High Risk Books hardcover edition
Author William S. Burroughs
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre Novella
Publisher Whitney Museum of American Art
Publication date
1991
Media typePrint (Hardcover and Paperback)
ISBN 1-85242-406-0 (1995 edition)
OCLC 33060000
813/.54 20
LC Class PS3552.U75 G48 1995

Ghost of Chance is a novella by William S. Burroughs. The story was first published in 1991 in a special limited edition by the Library Fellows of the Whitney Museum of American Art; this was followed by a mass market hardcover edition in 1995 by High Risk Books and a paperback edition published after Burroughs' death.

The novella, primarily set in Madagascar, initially focuses on a character named Captain Mission, founder of the pirate colony Libertatia, and is described on the back cover of the 1995 edition as being "an important story about environmental devastation." Following Mission's death in the narrative, the novella moves into the present day and tells of a series of deadly viruses that plague humankind, including one that causes people to believe they have the powers of Jesus Christ and another that causes uncontrollable hair growth. The narrative also switches to discussing the real-life endangerment of lemurs in Madagascar and the story ends with the author requesting readers donate to the Duke University Primate Center.

Burroughs' longtime collaborator Brion Gysin, who died several years before the book was published, is referenced by name several times, and the book includes a brief narrative segment that Burroughs had recorded for his 1990 album Dead City Radio under the title "Brion Gysin's All-Purpose Bedtime Story."


Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Brion Gysin</span> British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist

Brion Gysin was a British-Canadian painter, writer, sound poet, performance artist and inventor of experimental devices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cut-up technique</span> Literary technique of rearranging text

The cut-up technique is an aleatory literary technique in which a written text is cut up and rearranged to create a new text. The concept can be traced to the Dadaists of the 1920s, but it was developed and popularized in the 1950s and early 1960s, especially by writer William S. Burroughs. It has since been used in a wide variety of contexts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">William S. Burroughs</span> American writer and visual artist (1914–1997)

William Seward Burroughs II was an American writer and visual artist. He is widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular culture and literature. Burroughs wrote eighteen novels and novellas, six collections of short stories and four collections of essays, and five books have been published of his interviews and correspondences; he was initially briefly known by the pen name William Lee. He also collaborated on projects and recordings with numerous performers and musicians, made many appearances in films, and created and exhibited thousands of visual artworks, including his celebrated "Shotgun Art".

<i>Cities of the Red Night</i> 1981 novel by William S. Burroughs

Cities of the Red Night is a 1981 novel by American author William S. Burroughs. His first full-length novel since The Wild Boys (1971), it is part of his final trilogy of novels, known as The Red Night Trilogy, followed by The Place of Dead Roads (1983) and The Western Lands (1987). The plot involves a group of radical pirates who seek the freedom to live under the articles set out by Captain James Misson. In near present day, a parallel story follows a detective searching for a lost boy, abducted for use in a sexual ritual. The cities of the title mimic and parody real places, and Burroughs makes references to the United States, Mexico, and Morocco.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Beat Hotel</span>

The Beat Hotel was a small, run-down hotel of 42 rooms at 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur in the Latin Quarter of Paris, notable chiefly as a residence for members of the Beat poetry movement of the mid-20th century.

<i>My Education: A Book of Dreams</i> 1995 novel by William S. Burroughs

My Education: A Book of Dreams (1995) (ISBN 0-14-009454-7) is the final novel by William S. Burroughs to be published before his death in 1997. It is a collection of dreams, taken from various decades, along with a few comments about the War on Drugs and paragraphs created with the cut-up technique. The book is dedicated to Michael Emerton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mohamed Hamri</span> Musical artist

Mohamed Hamri, commonly known as Hamri, was a Moroccan painter and author. Self-described as "The painter of Morocco," Hamri was one of the few Moroccans to participate in the Tangier Beat scene.

<i>Exterminator!</i> 1973 book collection by William S Burroughs

Exterminator! is a short story collection written by William S. Burroughs and first published in 1973. Early editions label the book a novel. It is not to be confused with The Exterminator, another collection of stories Burroughs published in 1960 in collaboration with Brion Gysin.

The Nova Trilogy or The Cut-up Trilogy is a name commonly given by critics to a series of three experimental novels by William S. Burroughs.

Spam poetry, sometimes called spoetry, is poetic verse composed primarily from the subject lines or content of spam e-mail messages.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ira Cohen</span> American poet

Ira Cohen was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker.

<i>The Process</i> (novel)

The Process is a novel by Brion Gysin which was published in 1969. Gysin was a painter and composer, and also collaborated with Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs on many occasions. The Process was his first full-length novel.

Dead City Radio is a musical album by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs, released by Island Records in 1990. The CD is a collection of readings by Burroughs set to a broad range of musical compositions. It was produced by Hal Willner and Nelson Lyon, with musical accompaniment from John Cale, Donald Fagen, Lenny Pickett, Chris Stein, alternative rock band Sonic Youth, and the NBC Symphony Orchestra, among others. It was dedicated to "Keith Haring, at the Apocalypse."

<i>The Cat Inside</i> Novel by William S. Burroughs

The Cat Inside is an autobiographical novella written by William S. Burroughs and illustrated by Brion Gysin. The book was first published by Grenfell Press in 1986 in an edition of only 133 copies; it was later reissued by Viking Press in 1992 in a mass market hardcover edition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sinclair Beiles</span> South African beat poet (1930–2000)

Sinclair Beiles was a South African beat poet and editor for Maurice Girodias at the Olympia Press in Paris. He developed along with William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin the cut-up technique of writing poetry and literature.

<i>The Third Mind</i> Book by William S. Burroughs II

The Third Mind is a book by Beat Generation novelist William S. Burroughs and artist/poet/novelist Brion Gysin. First published in a French-language edition in 1977, it was published in English in 1978. It contains numerous short fiction pieces as well as poetry by Gysin, and an interview with Burroughs. Some chapters had previously been published, in slightly different form, in various literary journals between 1960 and 1973.

<i>Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka</i> 1971 live album by The Master Musicians of Joujouka

Brian Jones Presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka is an album by the Moroccan group the Master Musicians of Joujouka, released on Rolling Stones Records and distributed by Atco Records in 1971. It was produced by Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones, who recorded a performance by the group on 29 July 1968 in the village of Jajouka in Morocco. Jones called the tracks "a specially chosen representation" of music played in the village during the annual week-long Rites of Pan Festival. It was significant for presenting the Moroccan group to a global audience, drawing other musicians to Jajouka, including American composer Ornette Coleman who collaborated with the group.

This is a bibliography of the works of William S. Burroughs.

<i>Call Me Burroughs</i> 1965 studio album by William S. Burroughs

Call Me Burroughs is a spoken word album by Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs, which was released on LP by The English Bookshop, Paris, in June 1965, and then issued in the United States by ESP-Disk, New York, in 1966. Rhino Word Beat reissued the album on Compact Disc in 1995, the company's first ever reissue.

<i>Burroughs: The Movie</i> 1983 American film

Burroughs: The Movie is a 1983 documentary film directed by Howard Brookner about the beat generation writer William S. Burroughs.