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Joan Vollmer (February 4, 1923 – September 6, 1951) was an influential participant in the early Beat Generation circle. While a student at Barnard College, she became the roommate of Edie Parker (later married to Jack Kerouac). Their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of ...
Jan 21, 2021 · Joan Vollmer opened her New York City home to the raucous Beats — and was ultimately shot in the head by one of the movement’s most influential writers, her common-law husband William S. Burroughs.
Apr 25, 2022 · After William Burroughs killed his wife Joan Vollmer, he threw away all her possessions. Their son, Bill Jr., never saw a photograph of her. When Bill Jr. was 32, he begged his father to send him a photo but he didn’t.
Pig-farmer Ralph Vollmer had first noticed his wife Joan was behaving strangely a few weeks before he decided to stage the violent four-day exorcism that led to her death. Joan had taken to lurching and dancing around outside, arms flailing about her head, swearing loudly at nobody in particular.
Sep 8, 2009 · Joan’s role in the early days of the Beats cannot, in any way, be overstated – it was her apartment where Allen first met Kerouac, and her wit and intelligence easily matched those around her, (as both Herbert Huncke and Allen himself would later recall).
Jul 26, 2018 · If popular culture remembers that wife, Joan Vollmer, it mostly remembers her for the manner of her death: shot, they say, as a result of Burroughs’ drunken imitation of William Tell.
Dec 11, 2017 · This is a collection of primary source documents related to the death of William S. Burroughs’ wife Joan Vollmer Burroughs. On 6 September 1951 Burroughs shot her in the forehead during a small party in Mexico City.
