Burroughs seemed to have entered a very calculated & focused new phase w/ this one. the publishers seemed to've decided that he deserved careful layout w/ many pictures. This bk is a milestone for me, both for Burroughs & for writing in general. He gets to combine the life of a criminal & delirious writing - both neatly dovetailing. ( )

I've started revisiting Burroughs after years of neglect. Based on the real life last words of gangster Dutch Schultz, Burroughs presents Schultz' life as experimental film. Burroughs' nightmarish surrealism only appears in controlled bursts. (Many argue this when his work his most effective. See my review of the new audio version of Naked Lunch I'll be writing soon.)I recommend this book to anyone interest in old school gangsters or experimental film. It's a shame this was never shot by a good director with a proper budget.The Viking Press hardback is littered with great period photographs and art deco design work. ( )

I bought The Last Words of Dutch Schultz immediately after reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy, by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. I was expecting something a bit more esoteric for that reason -- in Shea and Wilson's book, Dutch's last words contain occult information of a sort very different from that in Burroughs' book. Shea and Wilson weave together Lovecraftian topics and beatnik fiction to create a fascinating hybrid.

Nevertheless, Burroughs' book is interesting in its own right. Writing as a film script is jarring to the reader, much like Burroughs' cut-up writing style. Burroughs underlines Dutch's ravings, made to a stenographer in the hospital as he lay dying, with his vision of 1930's mafia life. It's a dark, grungy book, well written, though at first difficult to get into. Certainly not what I had expected. ( )