The Last Words of Dutch Schultz: A Fiction in the Form of a Film Script

by William S. Burroughs

Paper Book, 1993

Status

Available

Publication

New York : Arcade, 1993.

Description

"Before he was gunned down in the Palace Chop House in Newark, New Jersey, in October 1935, Arthur Flegenheimer, alias Dutch Schultz, was generally considered New York's Number One racketeer. Taken to a hospital following the gangland shooting, he survived for two days. His room was guarded around the clock, and a police stenographer was stationed at his bedside in the hope of learning who his assailant or assailants were. Instead, what was recorded were Dutch's fevered fantasies, stemming from his childhood and youth, as well as his recent past. Taking these "last words" as his starting point, Burroughs has created his own fantasy of Dutch Schultz, casting his fiction in the form of a film script"--www.goodreads.com.

User reviews

LibraryThing member librarianbryan
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
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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.
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LibraryThing member marc_beherec
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
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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.
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Language

Barcode

6229
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