8 • THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
COVER STORY
THURSDAY,APRIL 24,2003
Lawrence's literary legacy
By Erin Ohm
eohm@kansan.com
Kansan staff writer
Though William S. Burroughs lived longer in Lawrence than anywhere else, the community remains largely unaffected by the presence of the famous author.
Burroughs, who has written more than 50 books, lived in a red prefabricated house from Sears and Roebuck Company on Learnard Avenue in southeast Lawrence. Often called the "godfather of the Beat Generation," he lived in Lawrence for 16 years. He died here of a heart attack in August 1997 at age 83.
Burroughs first visited Lawrence in 1976 when he was invited for a four-day residency by the English department at the University. He decided to leave New York for good in late 1981 after he spent the summer here in an apartment across the street from what is now The Crossing, 618 W 12th St. James Grauerholz,a close friend of Burroughs, had arranged to have him stay in Lawrence after an extensive tour for his book Cities of the Red Night.
Burroughs wrote two major novels while living in Lawrence, The Place of Dead Roads and The Western Lands, sequels to Cities of the Red Night.
Faithful Friends
His cats, Fletch, Spooner and Calico, were among the closest friends of author William S. Burroughs during the time he lived in Lawrence.
Anyone who knew Burroughs while he lived here knew of his love for his cats, a love he developed after he moved to Lawrence in 1981 from New York.
David Ohle, a friend of Burroughs and a lecturer at the University of Kansas who teaches
screen writing and composition classes, said he had dotted on his pets.
"He was completely infatuated with his cats," Ohie said. "I think he really believed all his cats were reincarnated souls, and he treated them with unbelievable indulgence."
Burroughs himself stressed the importance of the companionship between himself and his cats in his book, The Cat Inside, which he wrote in Lawrence in 1982.
"My relationship with cats has saved me from a deadly
William S. Burroughs (photo from With William s. Burroughs by Victor Bockris)
and pervasive ignorance," he wrote.
While he was in Lawrence, Burroughs formed a circle of close friends that supported him and helped care for him, including Grauerholz, Ohle, Wayne Propst and Jim McCraary.
Grauerholz, who is
now executor of Burroughs' estate, said he had met Burroughs through Allen Ginsberg in New York in 1974. Grauerholz said he quickly had become friends and roommates with Burroughs, as well as his personal secretary, scheduling tours and performances.
"I liked him before we ever met," said Grauerholz, who was introduced to Burroughs' Naked Lunch in high school. "I like his dark humor, his satire, his imaginative views about people in the world. He was very dedicated to his work; I understood it and tried to encourage and assist him."
Though Burroughs did not circulate much in the Lawrence community as a whole, Propst said he had led an active social life among friends, hosted three or four dinner parties a week and traveled to New York,
Europe and Japan.
Europe and Japan Ohle was one of several friends who came over once or twice a week to cook dinner for Burroughs, who in turn
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