Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch is a 1959 novel by American author William. S. Burroughs. In it, Lee, a heroin user, looks to escape New York to avoid arrest by the police. He thus embarks on a journey through Philadelphia and Mexico before arriving in the fictional state of Freeland, where all life is well-ordered and hygienic. Following a riot in a Freeland psychological reconditioning center, however, Lee flees to the strange and fantastical city of Interzone. There, he encounters bizarre orgies, medical experiments involving giant centipedes, and pornographic performances. He takes a hallucinogenic drug, yage, which leads to a spiritual epiphany about the temporal and spatial fluidity of all life. However, Lee then finds himself again in his New York apartment, pursued by two police officers who wish to impound his notebooks. To avoid this, Lee tricks and kills the men, before fleeing to Panama City and then Tangier.

This guide uses the 2015 Penguin edition of the book.

Content Warning

Naked Lunch depicts substance use and abuse, addiction, graphic sexual content, and graphic violence.

Plot Summary

In Chapters 1-5, the narrator, Lee, a heroin user and small-time dealer, escapes an undercover police officer who has been tracking him by leaping onto a subway train.