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rfmcdonaldI knew little about Augusten Burroughs before I read the 2002 memoir that made him famous. I knew that he had a sense of humour that displayed a decided resilience; I knew that he had, as documented in her later book Dry, a serious problem with alcoholism; I knew that he was queer. Finally, I knew that Running With Scissors documented his adolescence living with the wacky family of his mother's psychiatrist. I expected enjoyable quirk.
I didn't get that at all. See Randy read about how Augusten was afraid that his erratic mother and his terrifyingly grim father would kill each other in one of their fights. Observe Randy as he learned that his mother's psychiatrist--also, apparently, her rapist--gave him the alcohol and the pills that Augusten would need to make the kind of credible suicide attempt that would keep him from going to school. Look at Randy discover how one of the more competent family members left her cat to starve to death trapped under a hamper in a basement because she thought her pet told her he wanted to die.
Burroughs does manage to write engagingly about all these experiences with a certain sense of humour, and Running With Scissors did end on a quasi-optimistic note (if he could survive that adolescence what couldn't he survive?) but for me the horror swamped whatever enjoyment I might have taken away from the book. Running With Scissors is a good book; it's just that I expected to read something that wasn't an abuse survivor's story.
I didn't get that at all. See Randy read about how Augusten was afraid that his erratic mother and his terrifyingly grim father would kill each other in one of their fights. Observe Randy as he learned that his mother's psychiatrist--also, apparently, her rapist--gave him the alcohol and the pills that Augusten would need to make the kind of credible suicide attempt that would keep him from going to school. Look at Randy discover how one of the more competent family members left her cat to starve to death trapped under a hamper in a basement because she thought her pet told her he wanted to die.
Burroughs does manage to write engagingly about all these experiences with a certain sense of humour, and Running With Scissors did end on a quasi-optimistic note (if he could survive that adolescence what couldn't he survive?) but for me the horror swamped whatever enjoyment I might have taken away from the book. Running With Scissors is a good book; it's just that I expected to read something that wasn't an abuse survivor's story.
