Like its predecessor, Speed, the book is an autobiographical novel based upon Burroughs' own life.

It covers his time spent in a prison farm in Kentucky, working on a fishing boat in Alaska, and visiting his father's old haunt, Tangiers, among other events.

Jennie Skerl, the academic who has published critical reviews of Burroughs' father's work, the Beats and Jane Bowles, befriended Billy and reported that his third novel included material about his liver transplant in 1976.

Material from the third novel was edited into his third published work, Cursed From Birth.

[1] As with Speed, Kentucky Ham is often erroneously listed as part of the Burroughs, Sr. literary canon.