Joan Vollmer

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).

She graduated from St. Agnes School in 1939 and attended Barnard College in New York City on a scholarship, also studying journalism at Columbia University.

Vollmer met Edie Parker at the West End Bar and the two moved in together in the first of a series of apartments in New York's Upper West Side that they shared with the writers, hustlers, alcoholics and drug addicts that later became known as the Beats.

These included: William S. Burroughs, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Lucien Carr, Herbert Huncke, Vickie Russell (a prostitute and addict who appears as "Mary" in Burroughs' novel Junkie), and Hal Chase, a Columbia University graduate student from Denver.

In The Women of the Beat Generation, Brenda Knight wrote:

"Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs was seminal in the creation of the Beat revolution; indeed the fires that stoked the Beat engine were started with Joan as patron and muse. Her apartment in New York was a nucleus that attracted many of the characters who played a vital role in the formation of the Beat; ... 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. 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."

Their apartment became a gathering place for the Beats during the 1940s, where Vollmer was often at the center of marathon, all-night discussions.

Vollmer married Paul Adams, a law student, in 1944, and had her first child, Julie, in August 1944.

In 1945, Vollmer asked Adams, who was in the military at the time, to consent to divorce.

Paul Adams divorced Vollmer upon returning from military service, reportedly appalled by her drug use and group of friends.

In 1945, Kerouac introduced her to Benzedrine, which she used heavily for a few years.

In 1946, she began a relationship with William S. Burroughs, later becoming his common-law wife.

Early in 1946, she began a long-term relationship with Burroughs.

The match was initially set up and encouraged by Ginsberg, who much admired Burroughs' intellect and considered Vollmer his female counterpart.

Once, Vollmer and Burroughs were arrested for having sex in a parked vehicle.

In 1946, Vollmer was admitted to Bellevue Hospital in New York City due to psychotic episodes as a result of excessive amphetamine use.

After being released, she began calling herself Mrs. William Burroughs despite the fact that Vollmer and Burroughs were never formally married.

Vollmer and Burroughs had a son, William Burroughs, Jr., in 1947.

Due to charges of drug abuse, drug distribution and lewd behavior, they relocated several times, moving first to New Waverly, Texas, then to New Orleans, and eventually to Mexico City.

While living in New Orleans, Burroughs was arrested for heroin possession, during which time police searched Vollmer's home, unearthing letters from Ginsberg discussing a possible shipment of marijuana.

The resulting criminal charges were grave; upon conviction, Burroughs would have served two to five years in Louisiana's infamous Angola State Prison.

To avoid prosecution, Burroughs fled to Mexico City.

Once he was settled, Vollmer joined him, along with her children.

Vollmer was reportedly unhappy in Mexico City.

Benzedrine, her usual drug of choice, was unavailable, and she wrote to Ginsberg that she was "somewhat drunk from 8:00am on... Bill is fine in himself, and so are we jointly. The boys are lovely, easy and cheap (3 pesos = 40 cents) but my patience is infinite."

Ted Morgan describes her in Literary Outlaw as a woman suffering from serious drug and alcohol addictions which had aged her noticeably.

Her face was swollen; she limped due to a recent bout of polio.

Herbert Huncke, who had stayed with the couple in Texas, was struck by Burroughs' indifference to Vollmer, stating that Burroughs "didn't like to be annoyed with her too much".

In August 1950, a petition for divorce was initiated in Mexico by Burroughs, Vollmer, or both.

(Although their marriage was a common-law marriage, in Mexico it was considered legal. ) However, the application was later withdrawn by their Mexican attorney.

The divorce was likely required due to Burroughs' stated desire to take custody of their son upon dissolution.

In 1951, Burroughs killed Vollmer.

He claimed, and shortly thereafter denied, the killing was a drunken attempt at playing William Tell.

Joan Vollmer was born in Ossining, New York, and raised in Loudonville, New York.

On September 6, 1951, shortly after his return from holiday in Ecuador with a boyfriend, Burroughs shot Vollmer in the head, allegedly while trying to shoot a glass he had asked her to balance on her head during a drunken William Tell act the couple were performing at a drinking party held at a friend's apartment in Mexico City.

Vollmer died several hours later at the age of 28.

Numerous newspapers incorrectly reported her age as 27.

In a 1980s interview with Ted Morgan, Burroughs described a domestic violence incident which occurred shortly after his arrival in Mexico in January 1950, stating that he "slapped" Vollmer after she threw his heroin in the toilet and recalled how he immediately went out to buy more, stating "What could she do? [Go back to Upstate] New York?"

The same scene was recounted in Burroughs' semi-autobiographical Junkie.