Running With Scissors (Burroughs)

Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs, 2002
Macmillan Picador
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780312422271


Summary
Running with Scissors 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.

The funny, harrowing and bestselling account of an ordinary boy’s survival under the most extraordinary circumstances. (From the publisher.)

The 2006 film version stars Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Jill Clayburgh, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow and Evan Rachel Wood.