Queer

In his Introduction, Burroughs explains the autobiographical context behind the novel. He describes Mexico City at the end of the 1940s as a cheap, chaotic, and violent place where he settled after fleeing drug charges in New Orleans, enrolling in courses at Mexico City College on the G.I. Bill, a U.S. government benefit program for veterans. He contrasts the protagonist Lee's character in his earlier novel Junky, where Lee is self-contained and insulated by heroin, with the Lee of this novel, who is in acute withdrawal, emotionally volatile, sexually ravenous, and drinking heavily. Lee's "routines," the comic, shocking monologues he performs for others, are a frantic mechanism to get attention and stave off personal disintegration. Burroughs reveals that the novel is shaped by an event never mentioned in the text itself: the accidental shooting death of his wife, Joan, in September 1951. He connects the book to a concept of spiritual possession, describing an "Ugly Spirit" he believes drove him to the fatal act and forced him into a lifetime of writing as a means of escape.

The narrative opens in Mexico City, where Lee, a middle-aged American expatriate recently off heroin and wanted on drug charges in the United States, turns his attention to Carl Steinberg, a young Jewish man born in Munich and raised in Baltimore. Carl accepts Lee's sexual interest intellectually but cannot reciprocate, and he eventually leaves for Uruguay with his family. Lee sits alone in a park watching blue flowers blow in the wind, feeling lonely and defeated, envisioning a line of boys each rejecting him in turn.

Lee meets Winston Moor, a thin, pale, self-absorbed acquaintance from New York, at a restaurant called the Rathskeller. Moor tells a self-serving story about building up his wife's ego, which Lee recognizes as delusional. Lee invites Moor to dinner, but Moor brings a friend as a chaperone and afterward refuses Lee's offer of a drink, citing a boat-building project. Lee recognizes the calculated brush-off and leans against a lamppost, sobered and drained.

Walking down the street, Lee spots Eugene Allerton, a young G.I. student, among a group of expatriates. Allerton is tall and very thin, with high cheekbones, a small bright-red mouth, and amber-colored eyes. His face is equivocal, both boyish and exotic. Lee nods and smiles, but Allerton does not smile back. At the Ship Ahoy, a dimly lit, unlicensed bar frequented by students, Lee finds Allerton alone and attempts a friendly greeting, but his face produces a grotesque double expression of naked lust and childlike trust that appalls Allerton, who cuts off contact.

Over the following days, Lee frequents Lola's, a small beer-and-soda joint where students gather. Spotting Allerton outside, Lee seizes on a partly true pretext to speak with him. That evening at the Ship Ahoy, Lee sits beside Allerton and talks casually and humorously, gradually dispelling Allerton's earlier wariness. Late that night, Allerton gets drunk and opens up, telling animated stories about his work in Counter-Intelligence in postwar Germany. Lee watches with intense physical longing. They begin meeting daily at five o'clock, with Allerton enjoying Lee's conversation but occasionally feeling oppressed by his presence. Allerton does not realize Lee is queer, attributing Lee's interest to wanting an audience.

Lee learns that a mutual acquaintance, John Dumé, has told Allerton about Lee's homosexuality. Over dinner, Lee launches into a self-mocking monologue about discovering his own queerness, framing it as a comic family curse. Allerton confirms he has been told, and Lee is relieved that Allerton shows no moral objection. They go back to Lee's apartment and have sex for the first time. Allerton responds without hostility but with curious detachment. Afterward, Lee offers to retrieve Allerton's camera from the pawn shop, and Allerton accepts.

The relationship quickly becomes strained. Lee discusses a South American plant called Yage, said to increase telepathic sensitivity. The evenings sometimes end well, but Allerton oscillates between receptiveness and cold irritation. The tension reaches a crisis when Lee retrieves the pawned camera at considerable expense and Allerton takes it without comment, then refuses a dinner invitation. Lee feels a physical pain as though a part of himself extended toward Allerton has been severed. He walks home, collapses on his bed, and sobs convulsively. The next day, he forces himself to analyze the situation: Allerton is not queer enough for a reciprocal relationship, resents claims on his time, and feels the camera gift created an unwanted obligation. Lee spirals into a chaotic month of heavy drinking, humiliating encounters, and near-violence.

Lee recovers and resolves that even though Allerton will never return his feelings, he is ready to take any risk. At the Ship Ahoy, he proposes they travel to South America together to search for Yage, at Lee's expense. Allerton resists, citing concerns about his independence. Lee offers a transactional arrangement: sexual contact twice a week, with Allerton free to pursue women and holding a round-trip ticket to leave at will. After a period of delay and tension, Allerton agrees.

They leave Mexico City by bus and fly from Panama to Quito, Ecuador, which is cold and bleak. Lee is mildly junk sick and obtains a small, insufficient prescription for paregoric, a dilute opium tincture, from a doctor who lectures him about addiction. They fly to the coastal town of Manta, where warm water eases Lee's withdrawal. Lee discusses Yage with Allerton at length, connecting it to telepathy and thought control.

They fly together to Guayaquil, a river city of parks and mixed populations. Lee wanders the streets in a state of intense, frustrated desire, experiencing vivid fantasies of inhabiting another's body. Back at the hotel, they have sex, with Allerton showing unusual intensity. They travel to beach towns along the coast, where the pattern of desire and refusal continues. Lee then goes to Quito alone for five days and returns with the information that Yage, also called Ayahuasca (scientific name Bannisteria caapi), grows in high jungle on the Amazon side of the Andes. They plan to travel to Puyo, the end of the road.

After an arduous journey by riverboat and bus over the Andes, they reach Puyo, a rainy, ramshackle town where locals evade their questions about Ayahuasca. Lee learns of an American botanist named Cotter living a few hours into the jungle and treks there with Allerton through hours of muddy trail. Cotter, a suspicious medical doctor in his fifties, greets them coolly. That night, sharing a narrow bamboo cot under a mosquito net hung against vampire bats, Lee puts his arm across Allerton and feels deep tenderness. Allerton pushes him away. Lee cries silently and dreams of standing before the deserted Ship Ahoy, holding his young son Willy and weeping without knowing why. Cotter proves evasive about Ayahuasca, claiming it is connected to Brujería (witchcraft) and that Lee cannot access its secrets. After three fruitless days, Lee tells Cotter they are leaving. Cotter makes no attempt to hide his relief.

In the Epilogue, narrated in first person, Lee passes through Panama alone, the journey with Allerton having ended. He describes Panama as a degraded, hostile place. He flies to Mexico City, nervous about being recognized at the airport as a fugitive on drug charges. At Lola's, the old student hangout, he asks everyone about Allerton. Burns, a regular with a maimed hand, tells Lee that Allerton left about six months earlier for South America with an Army colonel, serving as his guide. Art Gonzalez, Allerton's former roommate, confirms the departure and says no one has heard from Allerton since. That night, Lee dreams he finally finds Allerton in a Central American backwater. In the dream, Lee becomes "the Skip Tracer" for a fictional debt-collection agency, delivering a surreal, menacing monologue about tracking down debtors who owe debts that can never be repaid. The Skip Tracer exits, leaving wind blowing through the room and a curtain trailing over a sofa.