Running with Scissors: A Memoir
3 journalers for this copy...
no- one in my house knows where this has come from!! free to a good home!
posted to ginsterswansea
What an amazing life this man has led!!!! Really, really fascinating, almost grisly in its bizarre childhood details uncovered. But it doesn't take itself too seriously and is actually a very funny book. My favourite phrase so far? 'My mother looked alarmed, like she'd just been diagnosed with a disease that would prevent her from ever being able to talk about herself again'.
This memoir was sent to me in return for a Margaret Atwood novel and turned out to be (surprisingly) the most enjoyable autobiographical novel I have ever read! So thank you! Augusten Burroughs was unfortunate enough to be born to dysfunctional parents - an alcoholic poet with tendencies towards depression and psychosis (his mother), and a cold, uncaring man with a few psychological problems and an alchohol habit of his own (his father). The almost unbelievable story of his childhood takes us right from the start, with his mother leaving for a poetry reading. She is idolised, a goddess, a shining star in Augusten's world. Quickly we see chinks in her star status - 'Sebastian gave her a shag' at the mall the previous day, for example...She argues and screams and drinks and swears - and eventually falls into a bizarre relationship with her therapist, a certifiable lunatic. She then proceeds to give Augusten away to him, and makes him her son's adoptive father. The fun really begins when Augusten, a prim and proper gay young man, moves into the madhouse that is the Finch's home. At one point he and Natalie Finch decide to create a cathedral ceiling in the kitchen, which involves demolishing the roof. The pop prescription pills like smarties, do Bible Dips for all decisions, leave the Christmas turkey carcass out until August, and generally live lives of mayhem where there are, literally, no rules.
Augusten and the Finch girls smoke Marlboros and stay out all night; Agnes sits eating dog food in front of the broken TV; they shout at each other to 'release all their anger'. Doctor Finch is an amazing character, so much so that you almost suspect Burroughs might have made him up! He is very proud of his Masterbatorium. He has a number of girlfriends who come and go in the house. He prescribes anything to his patients and moves several of them into his own loony bin of a home. He even gives Augusten an overdose in order to take him out of the school he hates and get sectioned in the local sanitorium for a 'holiday'! He also sells his own teenage daughter to a paedophile in an abusive marriage....
Despite Augusten's strange and bizarre formative years, he went on to forge a new life in New York City and become a successful writer, no doubt making his mother proud. At no time does he criticise his parents, the Finches, or indeed the system whose fingers he seemed to slip through again and again. In fact, his writing is celebratory, totally positive, and absolutely hilarious right to the last page. The author even goes as far as to thank his parents in the final acknowledgements, for giving him such an interesting childhood.
A brilliant, sparkling, heartwarming, amazing memoir, from a pretty astonishing man who so badly wanted to be a Cosby, but to whom life dealt a far more interesting hand. You couldn't make it up....
Augusten and the Finch girls smoke Marlboros and stay out all night; Agnes sits eating dog food in front of the broken TV; they shout at each other to 'release all their anger'. Doctor Finch is an amazing character, so much so that you almost suspect Burroughs might have made him up! He is very proud of his Masterbatorium. He has a number of girlfriends who come and go in the house. He prescribes anything to his patients and moves several of them into his own loony bin of a home. He even gives Augusten an overdose in order to take him out of the school he hates and get sectioned in the local sanitorium for a 'holiday'! He also sells his own teenage daughter to a paedophile in an abusive marriage....
Despite Augusten's strange and bizarre formative years, he went on to forge a new life in New York City and become a successful writer, no doubt making his mother proud. At no time does he criticise his parents, the Finches, or indeed the system whose fingers he seemed to slip through again and again. In fact, his writing is celebratory, totally positive, and absolutely hilarious right to the last page. The author even goes as far as to thank his parents in the final acknowledgements, for giving him such an interesting childhood.
A brilliant, sparkling, heartwarming, amazing memoir, from a pretty astonishing man who so badly wanted to be a Cosby, but to whom life dealt a far more interesting hand. You couldn't make it up....
Journal Entry 5 by ginsterswansea at Phonebox on Walter Road, by Royal Bank of Scotland in Swansea, Wales United Kingdom on Tuesday, July 4, 2006
Released 17 yrs ago (7/4/2006 UTC) at Phonebox on Walter Road, by Royal Bank of Scotland in Swansea, Wales United Kingdom
WILD RELEASE NOTES:
RELEASE NOTES:
Inside the phone box, on the little shelf...
Inside the phone box, on the little shelf...
only picked it up today but i do plan to read it
CAUGHT IN SWANSEA WALES. U.K
CAUGHT IN SWANSEA WALES. U.K