Young Augusten Burroughs
Brad Pitt
(Welcome to the world of Sellevision, America's premier re...)
Welcome to the world of Sellevision, America's premier retail broadcasting network. When Max Andrews, the much loved and handsome (that is, lonely and gay) host of a "Toys for Tots" segment, accidentally exposes himself in front of millions of kids, Sellevision faces its first big scandal. As Max struggles to find a new job in television, the popular and perky host Peggy Jean Smythe is receiving sinister emails from a stalker.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002LHRL7A/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i8
2000
(This is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with...)
This is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor's bizarre family and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull an electroshock-therapy machine could provide entertainment.
https://www.amazon.com/Running-Scissors-Memoir-Augusten-Burroughs/dp/031242227X
2002
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00BY5QYA0/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0
2003
(With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quan...)
With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0011UGLH4/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i6
(Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection yet. Thi...)
Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection yet. This book is approved for consumption by those seeking pleasure, escape, amusement, enlightenment, or general distraction. This book is not approved to treat disorders such as eBay addiction or incessant blind dating.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000Q80SYE/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i5
(True stories that give voice to the thoughts that we all ...)
True stories that give voice to the thoughts that we all have but dare not mention. It begins with a Tang Instant-Breakfast Drink television commercial: "Yes, you, Augusten. You were great. We want you."
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00I1W23V8/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i7
Augusten Burroughs was born on October 23, 1965, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States to the family of John Gordon and Margaret (Richter) Robison. His original name was Christopher and he was the younger of two sons. When Augusten's parents divorced, his mother sent him to live with the family of her psychiatrist Dr. Rodolph Harvey Turcotte.
Augusten had a very tough childhood. He describes his father as an emotionally distant and alcoholic professor and his mother as a manic depressive confessional poet. The boy attended high school but after a year of living with the family of the mother's psychiatrist, Augusten dropped out of the sixth grade.
At the age of 17, Burroughs passed the General Educational Development tests and received a certificate that confirmed his high-school academic skills. Later Augusten made one more attempt to continue education enrolling at Holyoke Community College. However again it didn't become a long story. The future writer left college before the end of the first semester.
Before drowning himself in writing, Augusten worked for an advertising company in Manhattan as a copywriter, was a dog trainer, store clerk, waiter, and store detective. Besides, he had an experience of working as a radio commentator for National Public Radio. Burroughs’s first book is the campy novel Sellevision, set in the world of homeshopping networks. It was published in 2000.
Twenty years in the writing and a lifetime in the making was Burroughs’s Running with Scissors, based on his childhood diaries. This is his life story, beginning when he was an adolescent in the 1970s and lived under the guardianship of Rodolph Harvey Tureotte (Dr. Finch in the book).
Burroughs, like the Finch children, receives no adult guidance. He befriends Hope and Natalie Finch, with whom he shares substance abuse and delinquency. With the help of Finch, Burroughs fakes a suicide attempt to get out of school. He is seduced by Neil Bookman, a man in his thirties and the "adopted son" of Finch, who violently makes Burroughs his own, with Finch's approval.
Thomas Haley wrote in the Minneapolis Star Tribune that "it is too brutal and disturbing, despite the frequent laughs, to be read as an inspirational or life-affirming memoir. But Running with Scissors is nonetheless a stirring and stunning testament to a boy’s strength in an environment of unfathomable heartache and dysfunction."
Running with Scissors was followed by a series of memoirs. In 2002 Burroughs published a memoir Dry that enlightens the author's experience of treating alcoholism. From 2003 to 2006 he created Magical Thinking, Possible Side Effects, and A Wolf at the Table. The latter, dedicated to Burroughs' relationship with his father, however, was released only in 2008.
Among the latest works: This is How (2012) and Toil&Trouble (2019).
In 2005, Universal Studios and Red Wagon Productions bought the rights to A Wolf at the Table. One more Burroughs' work, Running with Scissors, became a film the next year. It was directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Brad Pitt.
Burroughs has been profiled in People and The Guardian. Besides, on the 2005 list of "The 25 Funniest People in America" by Entertainment Weekly, he was ranked 15.
(With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quan...)
(This is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with...)
2002(True stories that give voice to the thoughts that we all ...)
(Welcome to the world of Sellevision, America's premier re...)
2000(Augusten Burroughs's most provocative collection yet. Thi...)
Paying tax should entitle gays and lesbians to wed, Burroughs insists. The arguments against gay marriage, he says, are equivalent to some of the arguments waged long ago against allowing women and African-Americans to get the vote. The value of marriage, or democracy, will not somehow suffer by allowing more people to participate.
Quotations:
"That’s what gay people need to be allowed to do – get married. Not have domestic partnerships; that’s not acceptable. I don’t believe for a moment [gay marriage] would destroy the sanctity of marriage. But let’s just say for a moment that it does. Well, then the sanctity of marriage just has to be destroyed. It’s just too bad. You can’t have one set of benefits and only give them to some of the people."
"Writing gave me a place to park my mind, to try to untie the knots of my life."
"Childhood is what ended me up in the hospital and teetering on the edge of deathly alcoholism."
"There are some things you won't ever get over, where the past will never let go."
''And, really, the only option you have to make your life worthwhile is to share that experience, and pass it along.''
"Writing about the past is, for me, a process of digging and recovery, and trying to really nail with great specificity the way I felt or what I thought at the time. But when I’m writing a memoir about something current in my life, it’s a completely different process. I’m not sailing backwards in time but rather scrutinizing my present with as much specificity, as much honesty, as possible."
"Stop thinking about writing, stop reading about writing, stop worrying about writing, and just actually sit in one place and write something."
Augusten Burroughs is very honest with everything in his life and is often kind of crazy in a lot of ways.
Like all great humorists, his work includes a mix of moods, genial at times, raw at others. His work reaches readers because it is highly personal yet always accessible.
For a long time, Burroughs lived with a graphic designer Dennis Pilsits. On April 1, 2013, he married his agent Christopher Schelling.
Brad Pitt produced Running with Scissors.
Ryan Patrick Murphy directed Running with Scissors.
