Cities of the Red Night

Book excerpt: The first novel of the Red Night trilogy: “The most complete and most devastatingly sardonic statement of William Burroughs’s apocalyptic vision” (Newsday). Drawing freely from science fiction, hardboiled mystery, drug culture, and grotesque horror, William Burroughs trailblazed his own literary form, made famous with such classic novels as Naked Lunch. Considered by many to be his masterpiece, Cities of the Red Night is the first novel of his final trilogy, followed by The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands. Ranging across time and space, the kaleidoscopic narrative drops readers into a richly imagined alternate history. Our point of entry is the visionary pirate colony of Captain James Mission, who forged a society free of prejudice and oppression. From the 18th century we shuttle into the future, where a detective is on the hunt for a missing boy. Meanwhile, young men wage war against an evil empire of zealous mutants, and the population of this modern inferno is afflicted with a radioactive virus.