Joan Vollmer

In 1951, William Burroughs shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer in a drunken game of “William Tell” at a party above the American-owned Bounty Bar in Mexico City.

In the introduction to Queer, a novel written in 1953 but published in 1985, Burroughs states, “I am forced to the appalling conclusion that I would have never become a writer but for Joan’s death … So the death of Joan brought me into contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and maneuvered me into a lifelong struggle, in which I had no choice except to write my way out.” (Queer, 1985, p.xxii)