Running with Scissors

"Running with Scissors" is a 2002 memoir by American writer Augusten Burroughs. It is subtitled as "a memoir". The book tells the story of Burroughs' bizarre childhood life after his mother, who had an obsession with Anne Sexton, sent him to live with her psychiatrist.

"Running with Scissors" covers the period of Burroughs' disturbed adolescent and teenage years, starting at age twelve. Burroughs is sent to live with his mother's psychiatrist, Dr. Finch, when his parents separate and his mother comes out as a lesbian. He lives in dirty conditions, where rules are practically non-existent and children of all ages basically do whatever they want. Burroughs tells Dr. Finch's adopted 33-year-old son, Neil Bookman, that he is gay. From the age of thirteen to fifteen, Burroughs has an intense and open sexual relationship with Bookman, which started when Bookman forced the young boy to perform oral sex on him. Neither his psychotic mother nor any member of the Finch family try to stop the relationship. Bookman is besotted with the young boy but later suddenly disappears and is never to be seen again.

Burroughs forms a strong sibling relationship with Dr. Finch's daughter, Natalie, who is one year older than he, and together they break away from the madness of the Finch household as they make their separate ways in life. As a young teen, Burroughs accepts his homosexuality.

The film adaptation of "Running with Scissors" stars Alec Baldwin, Annette Bening, Brian Cox, Joseph Fiennes, Evan Rachel Wood, Jill Clayburgh, Gwyneth Paltrow and Joseph Cross as Burroughs, and was released in 2006.

Augusten Burroughs as a memoir writer has inspired me incredibly! His ways of writing are humourous and honest. His inspirations have gone as far as to inspire his own brother to write his own novel, "Look Me In The Eye". I hope to find it and read it soon, as well as the rest of Augusten's works.