A New Kind of Brady Bunch

I have introduced Augusten Burroughs as being a new voice of current times and a strong voice in the world of literature. After reading his novel Running with Scissors, I was somewhat amused and partially disturbed. While the novel is somewhat of a satirical look into his twisted childhood, the statements made are true because it is after all, an autobiography. Miriam Marty Clark assigned Burrough's novel, Running with Scissors for outside of class reading after doing studies on the "new kind of family" thinking that Burroughs could relate to a modern day Brady Bunch. Clark initially thought the novel was "nothing if not a book about family" (Clark 4). That opinion changed when she read it herself, calling it a "memoir of a boy whose mother, a depressed and delusional poet" (Clark 4). Miriam recalled the portion of the novel where Burroughs describes his sexual relationship with pedophile, Neil Bookman, and takes note of the details Augusten included in the chapter. While some feel sympathy for Burroughs and his strange way of coping with his childhood pain by poking fun at it, others such as Hal Niedzviecki, feel differently. Niedzviecki claims that Burroughs "spends so much time wallowing in self righteous indignation..." which I feel is an interesting point of view because I would think many pity Burroughs (Niedzviecki 2). Yes, Burroughs does focus a lot on himself in his novels, but his novels are focused on him, they are autobiographies after all.

Works Cited:
Clark, Miriam Marty. "Reading Students Reading in the Postcanonical Age." Pedagogy 5.2 (2005): 297- 303. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.

Niedzviecki, Hal. "A Wolf at the Table." Biography: An Interdisciplinary Quarterly 31.3 (2008): 505-506. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Web. 6 Dec. 2010.

Picture Citation:

http://www.bing.com/images/searchq=augusten+burroughs&view=detail&id=0B40623F058E11A20C07A2

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