Must Read Autobiographies - XIV

Running With Scissors
Augsten Burroughs

Running with Scissors, a memoir written by American writer Augusten Burroughs, was published in 2002. The book tells the story of Burroughs's bizarre childhood life after his mother, a chain-smoking aspiring poet, sent him to live with her psychiatrist.

Running with Scissors covers the life of Augusten, beginning at age 12 after a brief overview of his life as a child. Burroughs spends his early childhood in a clean and orderly home. His parents were prone to frequent conflicts which Augusten witnessed since he was a child.

After his parents separate Augusten's mother sends him to live with her psychiatrist, Dr. Finch. The doctor lives in a Victorian house located in Northampton, Massachusetts where he lives with his wife, Agnes, as well as his biological and adopted children and some of his own patients, where rules are practically nonexistent and children of all ages do whatever they please, such as having sex, smoking cigarettes and cannabis, and rebelling. 

The Finch house is filthily kept, with cockroaches roaming around the uncleaned dishes, Christmas trees left up year-round, stairs that Burroughs is afraid to walk up because he thinks that they will collapse under him, and nothing off limits. Eventually, Dr. Finch comes to believe that God is communicating to him through his feces and develops a form of divination to try and decipher these messages. 

Augusten's mother is shown as emotionally drained, excessive, self-centered, and ultimately incapable of being a parent. She has a sexual relationship with a local minister's wife, which is revealed to Burroughs when he accidentally walks in on them when he skips school. When this relationship ends, Burroughs's mother starts another with an affluent African-American woman. This relationship is tumultuous and unstable. At one point, they have a mental patient named Cesar live at their house, after another of his mother's breakdowns, as his 'dad'. Cesar attempts to rape Burroughs while he's sleeping, but does not succeed. His mother's biggest psychotic episode happens when she and Dorothy (her partner) move everything out of their house and attack Burroughs when he tries to intervene. 

Burroughs tells Dr. Finch's adopted 33-year-old son, Neil Bookman, that he is gay. From the age of 13 to 15, Burroughs has an intense and open sexual relationship with Bookman, which begins when Bookman forces the young boy to perform oral sex on him. Neither his mother nor any member of the Finch family is bothered by their relationship. Burroughs begins to enjoy exacting power over Bookman by threatening to charge him with statutory rape. Bookman is obsessed with the young boy, even though Burroughs has problems with their relationship, which only infatuates Bookman more. Bookman eventually leaves Northampton for New York City and is never heard from again by Burroughs or the Finches, even after they try everything in their power to find him.

Burroughs forms a close relationship with Dr. Finch's daughter, Natalie, who is one year older than he is, even though at the beginning of the book, he dislikes her. They finally leave the Finch household together.

At the end of the book, when Burroughs is living in his own apartment with Natalie, he is asked to choose between his mother and Dr. Finch when she accuses the doctor of raping her in a motel to cure her from one of her psychotic episodes. He still considers Dr. Finch's family and his mother to be his family, and he cannot bring himself to choose sides, although he is fairly certain that Dr. Finch did rape his mother. The book ends with Burroughs leaving Massachusetts and moving to New York City.

Namaste

Prabir