Exterminator!

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Exterminator!
1974 Viking Press paperback edition.
Author	William S. Burroughs
Country	United States
Language	English
Genre(s)	short stories
Publisher	Viking Press
Publication date	1973
Media type	Print (Hardcover and Paperback)

Exterminator! is a short story collection written by William S. Burroughs and first published in 1973 (some editions such as the 1974 paperback illustrated at right label the book a novel).

It is not to be confused with The Exterminator, another collection of stories Burroughs published in 1960 in collaboration with Brion Gysin.

The collection contains a number of Burroughs' most popular short pieces, such as "Twilight's Last Gleamings", "The Disciple of DE", "Wind Die, You Die, We Die", "Ali's Smile", and "The Coming of the Purple Better One". Some of the stories, such as "Ali's Smile", had previously been published in other books and magazines such as Rolling Stone, Village Voice, Evergreen Review, and Esquire Magazine.

The title story is about an insect exterminator, a job Burroughs himself once held. Certain aspects of this story were used in the film version of Naked Lunch, with the main character William Lee (a portrayal of Burroughs) holding the same job at the film's beginning.

In the 1980s, actor Ed Asner recorded a spoken word adaptation of "Wind Die. You Die. We Die", while Burroughs and Kurt Cobain recorded a musical version of one of the stories as the "Priest" they called him.

Some of the stories were initially published elsewhere, such as "Ali's Smile", which was also later included in Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology. A different story entitled "Twilight's Last Gleamings" appears in the later collection, Interzone.

[edit] Story list

Exterminator! contains the following stories:

1. "Exterminator!"
2. The Lemon Kid
3. Short Trip Home
4. Davy Jones
5. The Evening News
6. Astronaut's Return
7. My Face
8. Wind Die. You Die. We Die.
9. End of the Line
10. The Drums of Death
11. "Johnny 23"
12. The Discipline of DE
13. The Perfect Servant
14. Ali's Smile
15. Twilight's Last Gleamings
16. The Coming of the Purple Better One
17. "What Washington? What Orders?"
18. From Here to Eternity
19. The Teacher
20. They Do Not Always Remember
21. Friends
22. Seeing Red
23. Old Movie
24. Electricals
25. SPUT
26. Reddies
27. The "Priest" They Called Him
28. My Legs Señor
29. The End
30. Cold Lost Marbles

v • d • e Works by William S. Burroughs Novels and Novellas: And the Hippos Were Boiled in Their Tanks (unpublished) • Junkie • Queer • Naked Lunch • The Soft Machine • The Ticket That Exploded • Dead Fingers Talk • Nova Express • The Last Words of Dutch Schultz • The Wild Boys • Port of Saints • Blade Runner (a movie) • Cities of the Red Night • Ghost of Chance • The Place of Dead Roads • The Western Lands • My Education: A Book of Dreams • The Cat Inside Short story collections: Interzone • Exterminator! • Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology • Tornado Alley • The Burroughs File • The Third Mind Essay collections: The Electronic Revolution • The Third Mind • Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology• The Adding Machine: Collected Essays Non-fiction: The Yage Letters • The Job: Interviews with William S. Burroughs • Letters to Allen Ginsberg • The Burroughs File • Last Words: The Final Journals of William S. Burroughs Recording: Dead City Radio Films: The Junky's Christmas • Ah Pook is Here • Naked Lunch