I had read both Running with Scissors, and dry. But I listened to this one on audio, and was caught up in the emotion of his telling the story. ( )

A sad memoir of a boy suffering from the rejection of his father. Then mental abuse this boy faces is a terrible tragedy that no child should suffer through. As it ruins his family he is forced to watch his world around him burn and ignore him. ( )

This memoir of horrendous mental abuse by psychotic parents has much to recommend it if you can stomach the constant emotional pain inflicted on that child. At a minimum, one could say his mother was suicidal and his father was an alcoholic. But there was more: the ongoing threat of violence clinging to the house like a bad odor; a stench of fear; at the best of times neglect, at the worst, verbal violence; and perhaps, something else – the part the author does not, cannot remember.

Burrough’s ability to remember some events of his childhood so vividly, and to have blocked out others rings true, and is mesmerizing in its selectivity.

His longing for his father’s love was so palpable that as a child he stuffed a spare set of his father’s clothing and hugged it at night to get to sleep. He began to wish for his father’s death almost as passionately as he wished for his love. His mother pointed out to him the curious anomaly that he pronounced “Dad” as “Dead.” And yet he himself is determined to survive. He writes:

“I knew I had an ugly life. I knew I was lonely and I was scared. I thought something might be wrong with my father, wrong in the worst possible way. I believed he might contain a pathology of the mind – an emptiness – a knocking hollow where his soul should have been. But I also knew that one day, I would grow up. One day, I would be twenty, or thirty, or forty, even fifty and sixty and seventy and eighty and maybe even one hundred years old. And all those years were mine, they belonged to nobody but me. So even if I was unhappy now, it could all change tomorrow. … Maybe, I thought, I don’t need a father to be happy. Maybe, what you get from a father you can get somewhere else, from somebody else, later. Or maybe you can just work around what’s missing, build the house of your life over the hole that is there and always will be.”

Burroughs is a poetic writer; one wishes he were not damaged and could apply his talent to a more uplifting tale. ( )

A Wolf at the Table is my first exposure to the work of Augusten Burroughs. I’ve neither read Running with Scissors (2002), nor seen the film (2006) based on the memoir. My understanding is that Running with Scissors focuses on the bond between Augusten Burroughs and his mother (”Deirdre”), much as A Wolf at the Table focuses on the lack of bond between the author and his father (”John”).

A Wolf at the Table is a raw portrait from the innocence of a child’s eye. Burroughs shares the exquisite details of his first memories. This toddler’s joy at his homemade telescope soon gives way to despair when Burroughs realizes that the five words he hears nightly from his father, “very much I love you,” are spoken mechanically with no intrinsic emotion.

He is so starved for his father’s affections that Burroughs makes a card for him, hoping to win positive attention with words pasted from magazine advertisements: “Love. Belong. New. Exciting. Delicious. Father. Together. Happy. Welcome home!” This attempt is tossed to the side after little more than a cursory glance from John. When the 7-year-old child sees the casual but heart-felt love John gives the family dog, Burroughs tries to elicit a similar response by crafting a dog mask and crawling around the floor on all fours.

We see scores of examples of the young boy reaching out to his father, only to be angrily rebuffed or summarily ignored. Burroughs may be looking for any kind of love from his father; for his part, Burroughs continues to dole out unconditional love time and again.

At one point Burroughs sees that John has something of a split personality. Burroughs suffered from chronic stomach aches as a child, likely brought on by nervousness in response to discord at home. His father had a constant psoriatic rash, with thin peeling skin which often flaked and bled. The metaphor of decay is further carried throughout the home, with a rotting deck, overgrown yard, and often bare cupboards.

Deirdre makes some attempt to protect Augusten Burroughs from his father’s wrath (at the worst), or to make peace and bring them together (in more benign times). Ultimately she also suffers from social phobias and leaves him to fend for himself:

A Wolf at the Table is a quick read, but a disturbing read; I’m eager to read Running with Scissors to learn more about what forces continued to shape Burroughs during his adolescence. When we meet the author as an adult toward the end of Wolf, he seems to suffer mentally and physically. I hope that he is healthy and managing the scrutiny these books put on his past.

full review at www.sheIsTooFondOfBooks.com
She is Too Fond of Books ( )

I know of Augusten Burroughs through the film adaptation of his memoir, Running with Scissors. Having seen the film, it is unlikely that I will read the book. So when I saw that he had written another memoir, it stirred my interest. A Wolf at the Table is about his life as a child living with this parents and his brother. If one wonders how a teenager comes to live with his mother's batty therapist and his kooky family, it becomes abundantly clear in this intimate and gripping recollection of an abuse-ridden childhood.

Burroughs' father was an alcoholic prone to violent outbursts and later to psychotic episodes. Despite this terror, Burroughs' craved his father's attention and love. One of the most compelling elements of this abuse is the devastation he feels due to the selfish disinterest and inattention of his father. He relates instance after instance in which he tries to illicit a positive emotional response from his father, and each time he is turned away. While more loving and available, his mother nevertheless was distant and preoccupied.

Burroughs' writing is understated yet poignant. It evoked emotion not because of the tragedy of the story but through the portrayal of the world through a fearful and confused child's eyes. The thoughts that run through a little boy's mind when faced with the turmoil of abuse and psychological disorder roused empathy and stirred rage. In the end he did not, as he feared, become like his father, yet he has still not fully recovered from the terror and neglect.