Exterminator! is a short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 collection written by William S. Burroughs

William S. Burroughs

William Seward Burroughs II was an American novelist, poet, essayist and spoken word performer. A primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodernist author, he is considered to be "one of the most politically trenchant, culturally influential, and innovative artists of the 20th...

 and first published in 1973. Early editions label the book a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

).

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

Brion Gysin

Brion Gysin was a painter, writer, sound poet, and performance artist born in Taplow, Buckinghamshire.He is best known for his discovery of the cut-up technique, used by his friend, the novelist William S. Burroughs...

.

The collection contains a number of Burroughs' most popular short pieces, such as "Twilight's Last Gleamings", "The Discipline 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

Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...

, Village Voice, Evergreen Review

Evergreen Review

Evergreen Review is a U.S.-based literary magazine founded by Barney Rosset, publisher of Grove Press. It existed in print from 1957 through 1973, and was re-launched online in 1998...

, and Esquire Magazine.

The title story is about an insect exterminator

Pest control

Pest control refers to the regulation or management of a species defined as a pest, usually because it is perceived to be detrimental to a person's health, the ecology or the economy.-History:...

, a job Burroughs himself once held. Certain aspects of this story were used in the film version of Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch

Naked Lunch is a novel by William S. Burroughs originally published in 1959. The book is structured as a series of loosely-connected vignettes. Burroughs stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order...

, 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

Ed Asner

Edward Asner , commonly known as Ed Asner, is an American film, television, stage, and voice actor and former president of the Screen Actors Guild, primarily known for his Emmy Award-winning role as Lou Grant on both The Mary Tyler Moore Show and its spin-off series, Lou Grant...

 recorded a spoken word adaptation of "Wind Die. You Die. We Die", while Burroughs and Kurt Cobain

Kurt Cobain

Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...

 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

Ali's Smile/Naked Scientology

Ali's Smile: Naked Scientology is a collection of essays and a short story by American Beat writer William S. Burroughs . First published in 1971 as the short story "Ali's Smile", the book eventually contained a group of previously published newspaper articles as well, all of which address...

. A different story entitled "Twilight's Last Gleamings" appears in the later collection, Interzone

Interzone (book)

Interzone is a collection of short stories and other early works by William S. Burroughs. The collection was first published by Viking Penguin in 1989, although several of the stories had already been printed elsewhere, including an earlier publication entitled Early Routines...

.

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