I’m currently working my way through all of Augusten Burroughs’s stuff. I finished Running With Scissors pretty quick and loved it so much that I rented the movie the next day, and then the day after that, I checked Dry and Possible Side Effects out of the library.
Augusten Burroughs is a man who grew up in the most bizarrely abusive circumstances, never really went to school past the elementary grades, and somehow managed to move to Manhattan and land himself a job in advertising making six figures. Then he wrote these crazy-assed, hysterically funny memoirs, and is doing quite well on the proceeds, I’m sure. All of this without the benefit of plain old public schooling. Or college. Or a nicely-defined, lovingly-executed homeschool curriculum or methodology. God bless Augusten.
If you haven’t read this guy, you should. But be aware that he’s gay and he hands out the occasional gay sex scene in his writing. If you can’t handle that, then don’t read these books. But might I also suggest that if you can’t handle that, you promptly GET OVER IT, take a good look at yourself in a mirror and tell yourself that you’re all grown up now, and go ahead and read his memoirs anyway.
But I like to think that if you come here looking for book recommendations, you are already the kind of person who is ALL GROWN UP NOW and secure in your own identity enough to handle it.
Here’s a passage from Dry that had me laughing out loud as quietly as possible so as not to wake the kids at midnight:
I do a hundred situps every day and go to the gym four times a week, as required for a Manhattan guy who is into guys. If you’re gay and live in New York and don’t go to the gym, eventually they come for you. The Gym Rats from Chelsea come in their Raymond Dragon tank tops and haul your ass into the back of a Yukon. You wake up hogtied in a bathroom stall at a Red Lobster in Paramus. A sign around your neck reads: DO NOT DRIVE ME INTO MANHATTAN UNTIL I HAVE PECS. (p. 118-119)
And from Running With Scissors:
“We’re going to make this a special Christmas. Even if your goddamn sonofabitch father can’t bring himself to do anything but raise a glass to his lips.”
She began to sing along with Angela Lansbury’s warbling about dragging out the holly and throwing up the tree before my mood crashes and I want to kill myself, or however it went. (p. 277)
Looking for something worth reading? Anything by Augusten will do.
Thanks for that. I’ll check our podunk library out and see if they have it. Of course, you mentioned gay in redneck country, so not sure if I’ll find it. Guess I’ll have to pay that other county library again.
We are heading to the library today, and I need something other then “One Fish, Two, Fish”. Thanks for the suggestions…
OMG - our libraries have them all! I’m planning a trip there tomorrow.
You won’t want to put these down till you’re done. I guarantee it.
he is the best! i just got his book wolf at the door for my birthday, cannot wait to start it. Everything he has written has been phenomenal. My favourite is dry.