Queer was originally written as an extension of Junkie, which had been judged too short and uninteresting for publication.
The 25th Anniversary edition of Queer published in 2010, edited by Oliver Harris, made some small revisions to the text and, in an introduction, argued that the novel's real traumatic backstory was Burroughs' real life relationship with Lewis Marker, fictionalised in the narrative as Lee's hopeless desire for Allerton.