Dennis Hopper Performs Sections from Naked Lunch (1959)

When Naked Lunch: the Restored Text appeared in 2003, it changed the originally untitled opening section by dividing it up into three shorter sections, beginning with “And Start West” — but where did this title come from? It appears in no previous edition of the book and was not used when this material featured in Chicago Review or Big Table magazines in 1958 and 1959. Most literally, it derives from the section’s final phrase: “So we stock up on H, buy a secondhand Studebaker, and start west"

Dennis Hopper performs select passages from William S. Burroughs' seminal novel, where the physical world is melded with mind-blowingly surrealistic.reveries and instances of slyly dark humor. Mr. Hopper is accompanied by Sonic Youth, "Cool Thing".