The Book Sense 76
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Talk (Shock?!) Therapy
by Augusten Burroughs

Augusten Burroughs is the author of Running With Scissors, a memoir that is by turns hilarious, sad, astonishing, and horrifying...a story with great heart, and a tale of survival. The book is a top seller nationwide, is a July/August 2002 Book Sense 76 pick, and is a USA Today book club selection. Burroughs lives in Manhattan, and also online at Augusten.com. **Read the first chapter of the book!**

My childhood was particularly unusual and extremely mortifying. For the duration of my twenties, I seldom spoke of it. I cleverly skirted the facts. Those facts being: when I was 12, my manic-depressive confessional poet lesbian mother gave me away to her lunatic psychiatrist, a dead-ringer for Santa. And I lived with Santa and his "eccentric" family, a few patients and various animals in a dilapidated Victorian in Northampton, Massachusetts. I have no formal education. I have done almost every gross and bad thing you can conceive of. These are the bald facts. And like I said, in my twenties I was deeply ashamed of them.

"Okay, tell me about your family," is a standard line on a third date. Small wonder that I seldom had a fourth date.

So I "minimized." I told people, "My mother was a poet and her therapist was a close friend of the family." I said, "My mom had a house in Amherst. So yeah, I thought of going to The College."

Of course, I did think of attending Amherst College, this was true. It was also true that Amherst College would never, under any circumstances, have accepted me as a member of their janitorial staff, much less as a student.

Then in my thirties after publishing my first book, I told my literary agent a few of my "bad, true, secret" stories and he encouraged me to begin committing my childhood to print.

My editor, too, was thrilled by the idea. "Oh my God, that's the most shocking thing I've ever heard in my life." This from the publisher who brought you Monica's Story.

Even I knew my story was unique and bizarre. And objectively, I could see how in this society, it might make for a riveting read. After all, my publisher gave me praise and cash.

I became intoxicated with the idea of writing my memoir. And then I became intoxicated by the process of writing my memoir. Of going back into my nasty and foul childhood and remembering all the funny and horrid things, typing and spell-checking my past, then printing it on clean, 100% cotton paper, white and pure.

But while I was writing, it didn't sink in that people would actually read it. I imagined a few people would buy the book. That I would have a sales rank on Amazon.com (though probably one with a comma in the middle and a lot of numbers before it). I imagined that it was possible, one day, to meet somebody at a soiree on the Upper West Side and see my book on the host's bookshelf. Perhaps on a low shelf, near the bathroom. But I never truly considered that people would read it.

So naturally, I never considered holding anything back. Should I tell the pedophile and the hair conditioner story? Well, of course! What about the toilet bowl fortune telling story? Yes! Even the story about being spat on my mental patients in a hospital while I sang "You Light Up My Life"? Absolutely.

But as the publication date approached, the reality of what I had done settled over me. And I wanted to take it back. Because of the madness of the process, I'd overlooked the reality: I had spent all of my adult life hiding my freakish cake-taking past, and now I'd turned it into a 304-page calling card.

"Seriously, could I return the advance? Buy it back?" I asked my agent.

"It's already a product," he said with finality.

So I was faced with the harsh reality, instead of the glittering concept. "I'm working on my memoir," has a certain cache. "I used to eat dog food while I watched Captain and Tennille!" lacks this cache.

My anxiety was gently acknowledged, but the book was published. People bought the book. And then, to my utter and profound shock, they read the book.

I began to receive e-mail. Fifty or more a day. These were letters from people -- complete strangers I had never even slept with -- who now had deep knowledge of my most intimate secrets. They felt they knew me. They wanted me to know them.

At book readings, people come up to me with this look in their eyes. This look that you seldom see when you are not in bed with someone. It's the look of intimacy. You don't expect a person with this look to be wearing pants.

My feeling was, "Oh my God, this person knows way too much." I am a ridiculously private, reserved and shy person. I reveal no details of my life, no matter how small.

But then something happened. People didn't reject me because of my horror stories. They didn't treat me like a zoo animal. They didn't reach for my arm and then recoil, shrieking, "Oh my God, I touched him, oh how gross!!!"

People wanted me to know they were damaged, too. And that they felt better now. Less like freaks. Or they wanted to tell me they had normal childhoods and now felt like, "Hey, wait a minute…" Like it would have been better to have at least one big, weird, horrifying thing of their own. Maybe just one thing from my book. Perhaps the rotting turkey carcass could be theirs, or the electroshock therapy machine. But probably not the turd under the piano or the pedophile thing. And my mother, they don't want her.

So now, I'm different. I don't feel bad about my childhood. And I'm not afraid to open up and talk about myself. In fact, an opposite phenomenon has occurred.

I can't shut the f*** up about myself.

Running With Scissors

Visit Augusten.com

Running With Scissors was a July/August Book Sense 76 Pick:
"This book is like a hybrid offspring of the writings of Derrick Jensen and David Sedaris, as the author’s story is both insightful and humorous. Anyone who reads this book will have a greater understanding and respect for those who had difficult or unusual circumstances or challenges in their youth. I highly recommend this book." - Lin Orndorf, Malaprop's Bookstore/Café, Asheville, NC

Photo courtesy of the author.

Further Reading:

• M.A. Harper
• Steve Almond
• Lawrence Schimel

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