The guy who wrote “Naked Lunch” and “Junky” won’t mind that I’m wishing him a belated birthday. William S. Burroughs was born on February 5 in 1914 and died in 1997  which may be a record for someone with his penchant for drugs.

Most know that Burroughs was an important fixture of the Beat Generation and was close friends with Allen Ginsburg and Jack Kerouac. Not many know that Lansing born writer John Herrmann also crossed paths with Burroughs and it is generally accepted that Herrmann was at the author’s reenactment of the “William Tell Overture” where  Burrough’s failed attempt to shoot a shot glass off his wife’s head ended in her death. Alcohol was involved but then alcohol was involved in many of the excursions taken by Herrmann.

Herrmann was the son of a wealthy Lansing merchant and after graduation from high school he left Lansing for Paris, connected with “the lost generation” and became a member of the Hemingway crowd. He eventually married author Josephine Herbst and wrote a couple banned books. The books are pretty bland and it’s more likely they were banned for Herrmann’s close ties to the Communist Party.

The author likely would’ve become a minor footnote in literary history except for the fact he became a member of the Communist spy Alger Hiss’ cell and was responsible for introducing Hiss to Whittaker Chambers. Hiss was convicted of spying and Chambers of perjury while Herrmann fled to Mexico where he later died. The Herrmann Conference Center on the Lansing Community College campus is named for his