Running with Scissors: A Memoir
Written by Augusten Burroughs
Narrated by Augusten Burroughs
Description
Running with Scissors is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa and a lunatic in the bargain.
Suddenly, at age twelve, Augusten Burroughs found himself living in a dilapidated Victorian in perfect squalor. The doctor's bizarre family, a few patients, and a pedophile living in the backyard shed completed the tableau. Here, there were no rules, there was no school. The Christmas tree stayed up until summer, and Valium was eaten like Pez. And when things got dull, there was always the vintage electroshock therapy machine under the stairs...
Running with Scissors is at turns foul and harrowing, compelling and maniacally funny. But above all, it chronicles an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances.
A Macmillan Audio production.
About the author
Augusten Burroughs is the author of Running with Scissors, Dry, Magical Thinking: True Stories, Possible Side Effects, A Wolf at the Table and You Better Not Cry. He is also the author of the novel Sellevision, which has been optioned for film. The film version of Running with Scissors, directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Brad Pitt, was released in October 2006 and starred Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Annette Bening (nominated for a Golden Globe for her role), Alec Baldwin and Evan Rachel Wood. Augusten's writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers around the world including The New York Times and New York Magazine. In 2005 Entertainment Weekly named him one of "The 25 Funniest People in America." He resides in New York City and Western Massachusetts.
Reviews
What people think about Running with Scissors
3.8Critic reviews
There's no way your family has even half the dysfunction of Augusten Burrough's. Seriously, there's a pedophile who lives in the shed behind his house. Defines "insanely funny." (If your family *is* half as dysfunctional, you should do something about it — like write a book!)
Scribd Editors
Reader reviews
- (5/5)Was surprised to find this on my "to-read" shelf considering I read it a couple of years ago! I really loved it, so much so that I shortly thereafter read Dry and You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas. Those were both excellent as well, and I'm looking forward to devour more of his books!
- (4/5)I still love it.
- (4/5)This book was interesting, to say the least. At times, I found myself questioning the authenticity of his "true" stories, but there is still no proof , that I know of, that these stories are fake. Regardless, I still love this book and consider it to be highly entertaining and painfully funny.
- (3/5)Not for the conservative or squeamish, but funny and touching.
- (4/5)Was an interesting read. Only the 2nd of Burroughs books that I have read thus far. This focuses mainly on his childhood and early teen years. During this time his mother has a few psychotic breaks and Augusten goes to live with his mother's therapist. Although the family lives in a nice neighborhood there's is the worst house on the block. The family is quirky to put it politely. A Christmas tree is left up until May. Augusten and one of the other kids knock out the kitchen ceiling and then put in a "skylight" using a window from the pantry. That's just a couple of examples of what happens in the house where he grows up without his parents. At times the book is laugh out loud funny and other times my mouth dropped open with shock at what he says is happening. That being said you can't help but wonder how much of the book is actually true and how much is pure fiction or embellished truth.
- (3/5)This was an enjoyable read, definitely, but the controversy around it is one of the many reasons I dislike the "memoir" genre. Burroughs has certainly fictionalized and exaggerated large chunks of the life story he presents in this book, and I hated to read articles later on about the real people he hurt by misrepresenting. So: read this, enjoy it, but take it all with a grain of salt. Memoirs are all about sculpting one's life events into a cohesive story, and in Burroughs case, it seems to have taken more than a little fiction to do so.