Product Description

This is the story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of grandeur) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead ringer for Santa Claus and a certifiable lunatic into the bargain. Suddenly at the age of 12, Augusten found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian house in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients and a paedophile living in the garden shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules or school. The Christmas tree stayed up until Summer and valium was chomped down like sweets. When things got a bit slow, there was always the ancient electroshock therapy machine under the stairs.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #900288 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 352 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
There is a passage early in Augusten Burroughs's harrowing and highly entertaining memoir Running with Scissors that speaks volumes about the author. While going to the garbage dump with his father, young Augusten spots a chipped glass-top coffee table that he longs to bring home. "I knew I could hide the chip by fanning a display of magazines on the surface, like in a doctor's office," he writes, "And it certainly wouldn't be dirty after I polished it with Windex for three hours."

There were certainly numerous chips in the childhood Burroughs describes: an alcoholic father, an unstable mother who gives him up for adoption to her therapist and an adolescence spent as part of the therapist's eccentric extended family, gobbling prescription medicines and fooling around with both an old electroshock machine and a paedophile who lives in a shed out back. But just as he dreamed of doing with that old table, Burroughs employs a vigorous program of decoration and fervent polishing to a life that many would have simply thrown in a landfill. Despite her abandonment, he never gives up on his increasingly unbalanced mother. And rather than despair about his lot, he glamorises it: planning a "beauty empire" and performing an a cappella version of "You Light Up My Life" at a local mental ward.

Burroughs' perspective achieves a crucial balance for a memoir: emotional but not self-involved, observant but not clinical, funny but not deliberately comic. And it's ultimately a feel-good story: as he steers through a challenging childhood, there's always a sense that Burroughs' survivor mentality will guide him through and that the coffee table will be salvaged after all. --John Moe, Amazon.com

Review
'This true story is a match for the strangest... Running with Scissors reads like an extremely well crafted and crazed sitcom, a mix of Jerry Springer and Seinfeld... Funny, moving and extraordinary' Christina Patterson, Independent 'Twisted, hilarious and relentlessly bizarre... It single-handedly redefines the term "fucked up childhood"' Sleazenation 'Bawdy, outrageous, often hilarious... so flippant and so insanely funny' New York Times 'A story so strange, it could never be fiction... deftly written, smart and funny' GQ'Burroughs will be hard pressed ever to better this, his debut effort... It's one you'll never forget' Alice Fisher, Time Out 'Dave Pelzer with a whoopee cushion attached... Genuinely memorable' Observer TOP 50 CULTURAL EVENTS OF THE SEASON 'This is the Brady Bunch on Viagra... it is impossible not to laugh at all the jokes; to admire the sardonic, fetid tone; to wonder, slack-jawed and agog, at the sheer looniness of the vista he conjures up' Rachel Cooke, Observer

New York Times
'Bawdy, outrageous, often hilarious … so flippant and so insanely funny (quite literally) that the effect is of a William Burroughs situation comedy.'

Customer Reviews

A Cut Above
Ths book was recommended to me by a friend in America and I snapped it up as soon as it became available over here. My friend said I wouldn't be able to put it down. She was right. I read the entire thing in one sitting.

The story recounts five years in the life of Augusten Burroughs. His mother, being crazy, gives up her son into the care of her psychiatrist, and life for 12 year old Augusten just gets even crazier. The book reads as though it is a comedy and, trust me, you will find yourself laughing out loud on several occasions, but there is nothing comedic about the contents of the book. Some of the events are so shocking they seem slightly unbelievable and just when you think things couldn't get any worse, Burroughs throws something even more terrible at you, and you are left reeling from the impact.

You have to keep reminding yourself that this is a memoir, that these things did really happen to this little boy. Burroughs lived through this and the fact that he has produced such a stunning memoir, and indeed written it with such humour, is truly remarkable.

I would advise everyone who has ever read a book to read this one. It may never win literary acclaim, but Running With Scissors is an amazing read. I never thought it was possible to feel both repulsion and warmth at the same time, but Burroughs has shown me how it is done. Then again, through Running With Scissors, Burroughs has opened my eyes to a lot of things.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
I am surprised at some of the reviews on this book. I know we all have different tastes but i found it absolutely compelling, sadder than sad, yet at the same time, funny. An unusual book with so much going on...i couldn`t put it down. My daughter thoroughly enjoyed it too. One reviewer does not believe it all happened - i wonder why..?
A book worth buying in my opinion, and definately worth reading.

A darkly, comic gem
I read this book after reading an extract from it in a magazine and nothing could have prepared me for what I found. The book is a dark and disturbing memoir of a boy who is "raised" by the crazy family of his mother's psychiatrist. But don't be fooled, this is no navel-gazing, weighty tear-jerker; Burroughs writes candidly and with a dark humour and never encourages the reader to feel sorry for him or judge the bizarre parade of characters that pass through.
I'm sure this book won't appeal to everyone and if you're looking for a probing, 'hankies at the ready' story of a scarred childhood, then this isn't for you; however, if you want a fascinating, darkly comic book that explores the seedier side of growing up, then this is an excellent choice.