| The author of "Running with Scissors" delves into new territory with his most personal and unexpected memoir yet. "A Wolf at the Table" is the story of Burroughs' relationship with his father, his stunning psychological cruelty, and the redemptive power of hope.
Millions of listeners have been flat-out astonished, profoundly moved, and massively entertained by the writing of Augusten Burroughs. Now, with A Wolf At The Table-his first full-length memoir in five years-Augusten returns to his literary roots as one of the most famous memoirists of our time, yet he makes a quantum leap forward into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. A Wolf At The Table is the story of Augusten's relationship with his father, John Robison, Sr., a man only briefly touched upon in Running With Scissors. Told with shocking honesty and penetrating insight, A Wolf At The Table is more than the companion volume to Running with Scissors-it's a story of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.
From The Critics:
Memoir about the bestselling autobiographer's father manages flashes of insight but turns into yet another baroque chronicle of Burroughs's damaged childhood (Possible Side Effects, 2006, etc.).
In a dramatic early scene, his father explodes: " 'Goddamn you,' he spit in my face. 'Just this barrage of incessant talking on and on and onyou cannot simply dominate a room and the thoughts and attentions of every person in that room simply because you are in it.' " It's a completely disproportionate response to some routine toddler nagging, and the brutal spanking that accompanies it is a precursor of more abuse to come. Those familiar with Burroughs's particularly gothic familial mythos (previously focused on adolescence and early adulthood) will recognize his mother in her several manic, pill-popping appearances here. Instead of Svengali-like psychiatrists or his own self-destructive obsessions, the villain this time is the author's father, a philosophy professor and brooding drunk whose intellectual prowess only serves to further exacerbate his black moods and desire for solitude. Burroughs begins with some impressionistic early childhood memories, only getting around to any substantive consideration of his father some 80 pages into the text, when the boy becomes convinced that the man has killed his guinea pig. While Burroughs deftly builds a creepy portrait of a skulking, violence-prone predator, too often his subject is obscured by florid, overheated prose. After many pages of invective, not all of which seems warranted, the author finally demonstrates some perspective, writing, "All he was guilty of was not wanting me." A deeply felt personal essay padded to book length. - Kirkus Reviews
Annotation:
It seems unlikely that this disturbing memoir from Augusten Burroughs will achieve the popularity of his prior efforts, DRY and RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, but sales are not always the best definition of a book's success. Burroughs elevates his writing to a higher level by delving deeper than ever before into his own psyche and his twisted, though definitive, relationship with his father. Burroughs's abusive father was a philosophy professor whose complex intellectual obsessions isolated him from other people, particularly his own family. While at first he was merely a brooding peripheral presence in the life of young Augusten, he gradually begins to enact a torrent of abuse, both physical and psychological. As he brutally depicts this despicable behavior, Burroughs eventually determines that his father simply did not want him, but every dark and magnificent sentence of the book stands as a testament to his cathartic recovery.
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