When Writers Go Weird: That time William S. Burroughs accidentally killed his wife.

Are writers ever normal? No, otherwise they'd be productive members of society. When Writers Go Weird is when we remember writers acting strange, odd, off, or--yeah--just plain weird. Also known as Tuesday to them.

Today: That time William S. Burroughs played a gun game with his wife. It didn't end well.


Sometimes you see it coming from a mile away. Sometimes someone has enough quirks, enough peculiarities, enough moments of random behavior to know something will go wrong at some point. William S. Burroughs had enough of those sometimes over the years.

Born into a wealthy family, Burroughs grew up torn over his sexuality. Some stories have him losing his virginity as a 16-year old to a fellow male in the next bunk bed at a prestigious boarding school they attended together, while other stories have Burroughs losing his virginity at a brothel he frequented with a particular female prostitute he favored. Regardless, either option is good for a potential memoir.

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While at Harvard University, he...stayed in his room with a ferret and a .32 revolver.

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While at Harvard University, he gained a reputation for being a loner who stayed in his room, all the while with a ferret and a .32 revolver. After graduating, he visited Europe and randomly married a Jewish woman, Ilse von Klapper, so she could escape the German occupation. It was an entirely noble act, if completely unexpected and unplanned. They divorced nine years later after she was allowed to remain in the United States.

At the age of 25, Burroughs randomly cut off his pinky finger at the top joint, then casually brought it to his psychiatrist. The psychiatrist immediately admitted Burroughs into a mental hospital.

The snowball-down-a-mountain effect kept building. In his thirties, Burroughs was arrested for forging narcotics prescriptions, moved to Texas with his then common-in-law wife, Joan Vollmer, grew marijuana, and then was arrested one again in New Orleans for drugs. Shortly thereafter, Burroughs moved with his family to Mexico City.

It was during this time in Mexico City that Burroughs went from a fairly anonymous wealthy expatriate with somewhat erratic behavior patterns into having his face plastered in newspapers in both Mexico and the United States.

Vollmer and Burroughs had an unhappy marriage, especially after they moved south of the border. Burroughs began having regular male partners on the side, all while still using drugs. Meanwhile, Vollmer started drinking heavily and allegedly mocked her husband for abandoning her sexually and his behavior.

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Alas, Burroughs was drunk and not a folk hero with cunning skill. Booze and bullets do not mix.

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One night in 1951, the couple were drinking heavily with friends at the Bounty Bar in Mexico City. Inebriated, Burroughs brandished a handgun he was carrying and told his wife they were going to play a William Tell game. In case you can't place a name with the narrative, William Tell was a folk hero in old European tales that recounted his heroics that involved shooting an arrow through an apple placed on someone's head.

Alas, Burroughs was drunk and not a folk hero with cunning skill. Booze and bullets do not mix. His wife, Joan, placed a whiskey glass on top of her head at some distance from her husband. She closed her eyes, joking to others she couldn't stand the sight of blood. Burroughs took aim--and just as rapidly as the game started, it ended. Burroughs aimed too low, shooting his wife in the head. She died almost instantly. William Tell's reputation was safe.

Our William Tell impersonator and the dearly departed.

Mexican authorities arrested Burroughs, who told investigators about the William Tell game, but then recounted it almost as quickly. He changed his story to say the gun accidentally went off. The investigation continued, but after being in jail for just shy of two weeks, Burroughs's brother went to Mexico, bribed local authorities, and sprung his brother on bail.

The high-priced lawyer representing Burroughs ran into his own legal troubles (a car accident and scuffle with a local government official's son) and fled Mexico. With his case being delayed repeatedly, Burroughs had enough of the situation and soon followed in his former lawyer's footsteps by leaving Mexico.

In his absence, Mexican authorities found Burroughs guilty of culpable homicide and gave him a two year suspended sentence.

The final twist to all of this was that Burroughs--while wealthy from his parents' money--was not yet a famous writer of any note. (As the Associated Press recount above labels him an "heir," not an author.) The killing of Vollmer is what seemed to spark Burroughs, as Junkie, Queer, and Naked Lunch were all written in the first handful of years after the shooting. Burroughs spoke as much in the introduction to Queer (which he sat on for thirty years, finally publishing it in 1985):

"I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would never have become a writer but for Joan's death, and to a realization of the extent to which this event has motivated and formulated my writing."

Lest you think that Burroughs changed his view toward guns after killing his wife, he spent most of his remaining days armed. He often enjoyed posing for photos with his guns, too, for various media publications:

Bullet Bill Burroughs #1

Bullet Bill Burroughs #2

Bullet Bill Burroughs #3

In the fifty odd (in more ways than one) years that Burroughs lived after killing his wife, he became a cult hero of sorts. He appeared on the famous cover of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club album (that's Burroughs beside Marilyn Monroe in the middle), worked with bands like R.E.M. and U2 on songs or videos, while a dildo from Burroughs's Naked Lunch inspired the band Steely Dan's name.

Likewise, he made numerous appearances in movies and television shows, as well as a fictionalized version of himself in books by Jack Kerouac and J.G. Ballard.

In 1981, Burroughs randomly moved to Lawrence, Kansas, and spent the rest of his sixteen years there. He spent the rest of those years still enjoying guns, too, telling the Wichita Eagle newspaper once, "The thing I like about Kansas is that it's not nearly as violent, and it's a helluva lot cheaper. And I can get out in the country and fish and shoot and whatnot."

Luckily the shooting in Kansas never involved another round of playing William Tell.