Is Augusten Burroughs a man of his word or is he the grown-up version of a child with an overactive imagination residing in another world? Burroughs, a gay writer whose mother gave him up for adoption to her shrink when he was at the ripe young age of 14 years old is the author of Running with Scissors: A Memoir. Originally published in 2002, it was reprinted in 2006 with the release of the movie based on the novel and bearing the same name, recounts the early childhood of Burroughs. Despite being labeled under the non-fiction genre, there has been recent scandal and lawsuits against Burroughs for his depiction of life with his shrink’s family, whose name was changed to the Finches from the Turcottes in the novel. This second edition of Running with Scissors: A Memoir, included an author’s note to the readers of the novel: “The names and other identifying characteristics of the persons included in this memoir have been changed.”
In Running with Scissors: A Memoir, Burroughs’ mother Deidre is a neurotic, bordering on psychotic, aspiring poet who causes his father, a math professor at the University of Massachusetts, to become increasingly more estranged from the family and slip further into an alcoholic coma-like state with occasional violent tendencies. Deidre seeks help from Dr. Finch, an absurd man psychologist who has a “masturbatorium” at his practice, parades the streets of town in a suit covered in balloons, proposes to adopt random kids of his patients and lives in a pink house with his outlandish family. Agnes Finch, the mother of the Finch household, is described as being a hunchback who insists that Kibble and Bits dog food is fine for human consumption because it is “just a little kibble.” Hope Finch is a daughter of Dr. Finch and Agnes and is a strange uptight girl.
When she swears her cat Freud tells her he is dying of feline leukemia, she places him under a laundry basket without food or water for five days and watches him starve to death. The other daughter, Natalie Finch is the chubby and unkempt, wears the same skirt and halter top daily and becomes Burroughs’s confidant. Their 30- year-old adopted son, Bookman, is who Burroughs has his first sexual encounter. He falls madly in love with Burroughs before running away and never being heard from again. Running with Scissors: A Memoir chronicles the beginning of Burroughs’ childhood to his parents’ failed marriage to his first love through his time spent at the Finch household and all the madcap happenings that ensue in between.
Running with Scissors: A Memoir is a hero’s journey where the protagonist comes of age in an unhinged world where everyone Burroughs is close to is slightly off their rocker. “Eventually, the pans will be washed, the glasses returned to their roach-infested cabinets, and the silverware scrubbed free of debris. But Christmas trees and turkey bones tend to stay awhile.” This excerpt from Running with Scissors: A Memoir is a classic representation the style of writing Burroughs employs throughout this novel. Burroughs prose is blunt and descriptive in the illustrations it creates for the readers. The depiction of the Finch family is the most vivid in its portrayal in Running with Scissors: A Memoir, and its excessiveness is the cause for the lawsuits brought against Burroughs by the Turcotte family.
Running with Scissors: A Memoir is a great read with a plot that never bores and I could definitely have a second or third look at this novel. However, after reading the novel, labeled as a memoir and under the assumption that this book was a truthful account of Burroughs’, life I fell mislead and as if I was betrayed by a close friend. Though people experience memories differently from one person to the next, I think the biographical aspect of Running with Scissors: A Memoir should have been deemphasized and left out of its title. Perhaps “loosely based on truth” would be a better subtitle for Running with Scissors: A Memoir. However, in the same breath, I would recommend this work of literature to anyone searching for a hilariously tragic narrative on the muddled life of an adolescent coping with an eccentric family and the abnormally strange occurrences that accompany this peculiar situation.
Augusten Burroughs' website has information about his books, photo albums, tours and a blog written by Burroughs himself! http://www.augusten.com/index_flash.html
In Running with Scissors: A Memoir, Burroughs’ mother Deidre is a neurotic, bordering on psychotic, aspiring poet who causes his father, a math professor at the University of Massachusetts, to become increasingly more estranged from the family and slip further into an alcoholic coma-like state with occasional violent tendencies. Deidre seeks help from Dr. Finch, an absurd man psychologist who has a “masturbatorium” at his practice, parades the streets of town in a suit covered in balloons, proposes to adopt random kids of his patients and lives in a pink house with his outlandish family. Agnes Finch, the mother of the Finch household, is described as being a hunchback who insists that Kibble and Bits dog food is fine for human consumption because it is “just a little kibble.” Hope Finch is a daughter of Dr. Finch and Agnes and is a strange uptight girl.
When she swears her cat Freud tells her he is dying of feline leukemia, she places him under a laundry basket without food or water for five days and watches him starve to death. The other daughter, Natalie Finch is the chubby and unkempt, wears the same skirt and halter top daily and becomes Burroughs’s confidant. Their 30- year-old adopted son, Bookman, is who Burroughs has his first sexual encounter. He falls madly in love with Burroughs before running away and never being heard from again. Running with Scissors: A Memoir chronicles the beginning of Burroughs’ childhood to his parents’ failed marriage to his first love through his time spent at the Finch household and all the madcap happenings that ensue in between.
Running with Scissors: A Memoir is a hero’s journey where the protagonist comes of age in an unhinged world where everyone Burroughs is close to is slightly off their rocker. “Eventually, the pans will be washed, the glasses returned to their roach-infested cabinets, and the silverware scrubbed free of debris. But Christmas trees and turkey bones tend to stay awhile.” This excerpt from Running with Scissors: A Memoir is a classic representation the style of writing Burroughs employs throughout this novel. Burroughs prose is blunt and descriptive in the illustrations it creates for the readers. The depiction of the Finch family is the most vivid in its portrayal in Running with Scissors: A Memoir, and its excessiveness is the cause for the lawsuits brought against Burroughs by the Turcotte family.
Running with Scissors: A Memoir is a great read with a plot that never bores and I could definitely have a second or third look at this novel. However, after reading the novel, labeled as a memoir and under the assumption that this book was a truthful account of Burroughs’, life I fell mislead and as if I was betrayed by a close friend. Though people experience memories differently from one person to the next, I think the biographical aspect of Running with Scissors: A Memoir should have been deemphasized and left out of its title. Perhaps “loosely based on truth” would be a better subtitle for Running with Scissors: A Memoir. However, in the same breath, I would recommend this work of literature to anyone searching for a hilariously tragic narrative on the muddled life of an adolescent coping with an eccentric family and the abnormally strange occurrences that accompany this peculiar situation.
Augusten Burroughs' website has information about his books, photo albums, tours and a blog written by Burroughs himself! http://www.augusten.com/index_flash.html
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