Speed, first published in 1970, was the first of three published works by William S. Burroughs, Jr.

William S. Burroughs, Jr.

William Seward Burroughs III was an American novelist, also known as William S. Burroughs, Jr. and Billy Burroughs. He bears the name of both his father and his great grandfather, William Seward Burroughs I, the original inventor of the Burroughs adding machine...

, the son of the Beat Generation

Beat generation

The Beat Generation refers to a group of American post-WWII writers who came to prominence in the 1950s, as well as the cultural phenomena that they both documented and inspired...

 author 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...

.

Speed is an autobiographical novel

Autobiographical novel

An autobiographical novel is a form of novel using autofiction techniques, or the merging of autobiographical and fiction elements. The literary technique is distinguished from an autobiography or memoir by the stipulation of being fiction...

 about the ins and outs of the life of a methamphetamine

Methamphetamine

Methamphetamine is a psychostimulant of the phenethylamine and amphetamine class of psychoactive drugs...

 addict

Substance dependence

The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...

. It starts out with Burroughs in his grandmother's house in Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

 and moves to the streets of New York

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. It is written in the straight narrative

First-person narrative

First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...

 style. Throughout the book the life of the speed addict is explored and the stories of how Burroughs got from being a teenage speed-freak to getting arrested and tried for forging a prescription is touched upon.

Burroughs' second work, Kentucky Ham

Kentucky Ham

Kentucky Ham, first published in 1973, was the second novel by William S. Burroughs, Jr., the son of Beat Generation author William S. Burroughs.Like its predecessor, Speed, the book is an autobiographical novel based upon Burroughs' own life...

, is similar in some aspects to Speed and elucidates on the other adventures had by him after Speed was written. His third work, Cursed From Birth, was compiled by David Ohle and published postumously.

Due to the author having an almost identical name to his more famous father, and because the book deals with themes often featured in his father's writings, Speed is often erroneously credited to the elder Burroughs.