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Running With Scissors
Augusten Burroughs.
St. Martin's Press: 2002
(hardcover). ISBN: 0312283709.
304 pages.
Guide not available
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This, friends, may very well be the most disgusting and delightful memoir you will ever read. It's the story of one very pristine young lad, our hero Augusten, whose greatest concern is the maintenance of his perfect Ken doll hair and whose sweetest dream is one day to rule over his own Beauty Empire, just like Vidal Sassoon.
Unfortunately, because Augusten's mother is a raving narcissist with delusions of burning poetic talent, Augusten is dumped off to live with his mom's shrink at the tender age of twelve. Dr. Finch is cavalier about the new addition to his household; after all, he's been happy to welcome many of his most deluded patients as members of the family in the past. He's much more interested in treating Augusten's mother by introducing her to his Masturbatorium, or in enlisting his children's help to divine the will of God through the examination of a particularly fascinating piece of his own feces. Amidst the mind-boggling chaos of the Finch household, befriended by daughters Hope and Natalie, deflowered by gay older adopted brother Neil, abandoned by both his parents, Augusten is left to make his uncertain way in the world. Let it be said that there are parts of this story that are pretty much guaranteed to make you gag. But it's also a brilliant example of a courageous writer who wastes no time wallowing in the dregs of what must have been a terribly painful childhood. Instead he mines it for every black laugh that it can yield, and oh baby, is this a rich terrain for strangled laughter. Let all drama queens bow down and worship--you may have had a weird upbringing, but no, it wasn't this weird.
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