The Most Notorious Party “Game” in Literary History
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On the afternoon of September 6, 1951, in a friend’s Mexico City apartment, a drunk William S. Burroughs pulled out his handgun and (supposedly) said to his wife, Joan Vollmer, “It’s time for our William Tell act.” Vollmer (supposedly) laughed and placed a drinking glass on top of her head. Burroughs, known to be an expert shot, fired his gun, but missed the glass and instead shot Vollmer in the head, killing her. She was 28.
Before her death, Vollmer had been an influential member of the Beat Generation; the apartment she shared with Edie Parker was a favored gathering place for Burroughs and his friends, including Jack Kerouac (who Edie would later marry), Allen Ginsberg, and Lucien Carr. “Brilliant and well versed in philosophy and literature, Joan was the whetstone against which the main Beat writers—Allen, Jack, and Bill—sharpened their intellect,” wrote Brenda Knight in The Women of the Beat Generation. “Widely considered one of the most perceptive people in the group, her strong mind and independent nature helped bulldoze the Beats toward a new sensibility.”
