The idea to make hotel reviews the form of the novel came first. So I just started writing hotel reviews and tried to come up with a consistent voice.

I always wanted to write something illustrated, and the Details strip finally gave me the opportunity.

Have I mentioned that I expect death around every turn, that every blue sky has a safe sailing out of it, that every bus runs me over, that every low, mean syllable uttered in my direction seems to intimate the violence of murder, that every family seems like an opportunity for ruin and every marriage a ceremony into which calamity will fall and hearts will be broken and lives destroyed and people branded by the mortifications of love?

In general, each form is a relief from the other forms. I can't write a novel after a novel. I just use up all the material each time, and I need to rest.

There is no right or wrong reading of Naked Lunch, though some readings are more common, and thus Burroughs commercial is not the issue.

I'm trying to make sure that there's comedy as well as sadness. It makes the sadness more memorable.

I suppose I should say that I treasure blasphemy, as a faith of the highest order.