“Patient’s wife appeared to be an attractive woman […] She was expensively
dressed, walked with a limp due to polio in the past year. She was restless, spoke
with a fixed, forced smile throughout the interview, smoked one cigarette
practically after the other. She was admittedly “nervous,” ducked or raised her
head to the ceiling when speaking, but seldom met interviewer’s eyes. She […] is
believed not to have been completely frank with the knowledge in her possession.
[…] There were several bruises on her arms, for which she declined to give an
explanation other than words to the effect that she “bruised easily.” On the
surface, she was friendly. Her vocabulary was excellent.”
— From a psychologist’s report of William Burroughs, in The Death of Joan Vollmer Burroughs (Grauerholz, Jan. 2002) p. 14
