G.

Graham.

Interesting what a random article can throw up, eh?

G.

In the early mid-1970s, after receiving copies of “A Descriptive Catalogue Of The William S. Burroughs Archive,” from Richard Aaron of AM HERE BOOKS, I became more than obsessed with several of the photographs of WSB reproduced in that book.

I designed a suite of silk screen prints based on the photos, – Gysin’s photos for the most part, if not all.

I wrote to Richard Aaron in the hope of getting copyright clearance to proceed with my mad plans.

Richard generously gave me the sought after permission and also sent to me an actual photo of the reproduction on the page immediately prior to page one of the Catalogue. An interesting and lengthy correspondence then developed between Richard Aaron and myself.

Life went on.

Then, in 1975, I found the LLB Flower Arranging books in a junk/second-hand store.

I became enchanted with the picture of Laura, – I forget which volume – showing her in a beautiful dress/gown(?), primly seated on the settee behind the glass coffee table and the flower arrangement, holding a frosty bottle of Coca Cola in her aristocratic hands.

I decided to somehow include this image in my suite of silk screen prints and mentioned this idea in a letter to Richard Aaron, including a colour xerox of the image of the page from the flower arranging book.

Richard Aaron swiftly replied, advising me to forego any such plan for the picture of Laura in my project, as William was “extremely sensitive” and, if memory serves, “protective” about his mother.

Needless to say to some, I dropped the Laura picture idea from the project immediately.

I’m only kidding. It’s very odd. When I was reading those books, and they can be read quickly so certain stylistic tics and tremors and themes come through very clearly and are easy to remember, I got weird moments of deja vu when I came across lines like the one above.

If LLB valued books and reading and writing, as she clearly did, she must have passed that word-love on down to her favorite son; after all, Mort was his dad’s favorite, so she would have her own wee darling. And those books are the work of an accomplished writer, not just some word-dabbling dilettante. She must have practiced a lot to get as good as she did. So maybe WSB read some of her stuff and retained it, consciously or otherwise. I wonder how she came to be an authority in flower arranging, and how Coke came to know of her. Wonder if Ivy Lee had a hand in helping her out there.

As I keep saying, we’ll never know the answers to some of these questions, but it’s interesting to think through and construct possible hypotheses about. I wonder what WSB thought himself when he read the works, thanks to you. Now THAT would have been interesting to know, if he had made the same connections we have here. Maybe not. A writer is often the poorest judge of his own work, and if WSB was so close to his mother he may not have been able to see their similarities. But I’ll bet he appreciated the artistry and clean lines involved in their writing.

And we are DEFINITELY (literally) the product of our mothers.

G.

If I consider ‘nurture’ as a force flowing freely from Mothers towards their offspring, I reckon that William was very definitely taught something about the value of writing and literature by Laura.

As for “…picked up certain stylistic elements of his personality, and thus his writing, from her…” I am moved to consider the ‘nature’ force of genetics flowing from parent(s) to child and finding myself believing that YES, this is entirely possible, even probable.

Boys! (All you boys out there), I think we should always remember, we’re the product of our Mothers.