Augusten and the Wolf: A Review of "A Wolf at the Table" by Augusten Burroughs

Wherever Augusten Burroughs wants to take me, I am willing to go.

I am a die-hard fan of the 42-year-old writer, best known for his raucous, endearing memoir "Running With Scissors". "Scissors" examined, with great sensitivity and acerbic wit, his adolescence spent in the bizarre home of his mother's psychiatrist, where she pretty much abandoned him as a teenager. The book was terrifically successful, inspired a feature film of the same name, and put Burroughs on the literary map. And though I certainly enjoyed "Scissors", it was his next book, 2003's "Dry", that really knocked me on my keister. Employing his usual humor and depth of feeling, "Dry" is a recounting of Burroughs's chemical dependence and recovery and is one of the few books I've ever read that almost identically mirrors my personal experiences (we even went to the same rehab!). "Dry" could have easily been my own autobiography.

It is for these reasons that I trust Augusten Burroughs implicitly. If I had a literary kindred spirit, he'd probably be it. The places he needs to go, I've discovered, are also the places I need to go. Though the great majority of our life experiences couldn't be more different, Burroughs's brave examination of the few we do share is enough to give me the courage to look at my own life. It is a process. It is often slow. And it's comforting to know that when we undertake such a process, we may be lucky enough to have a fearless writer who has tread the path before us. The great poet Theodore Roethke wrote, "This shaking keeps me steady. I should know./What falls away is always. And is near./I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow./I learn by going where I have to go."

Yet even after all of this, I was not prepared for where Augusten Burroughs took me in his latest book, "A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father". Forgoing his trademark quirky humor and uncanny knack for making the downright weird completely entertaining, Burroughs undertakes a harrowing, heartbreaking dissection of his inaccessible father and the impact such a figure had on a young, impressionable boy.

Now, anyone who knows me realizes that I have a bit of a flirtation with the dark side. I enjoy a lot of books, movies, and music that some might label "depressing". I'm not afraid of human emotion, or, more specifically, bleak human emotion. But I have to admit that "A Wolf at the Table" is probably the saddest book I've ever read. My chest constricted, my stomach in knots, a lump lodged in my throat, my heart simply cracked more and more with each turn of the page.

But none of this -- not one word -- is written for shock value or sensationalist entertainment. While Burroughs is courageously retelling the story of his childhood, he is simultaneously (and equally courageously) piecing together what it all means. What it did both for and to him. How it shaped, defined, and destroyed various aspects of his being. You'll find no psychobabble or Freudian theory here. What you will find is a very human story. And what may at first seem devastating and crushing ultimately ends up surprisingly inspiring: the truth, which we all know is oftentimes a painful path to forge, really can set us free. This book is an important one, even for those of us who had good dads (and I have a great one), if for no other reason than to make us appreciate what we were lucky enough to have. Some weren't so fortunate.

"A Wolf at the Table" takes place in the pre-"Running With Scissors" years, when Augusten was a young boy living with his parents and peculiarly-absent older brother. His father, a bitter, violent alcoholic who often spilled over into the realm of the sociopathic, was a dark presence of immeasurable terror to the whole family. Yet he was consistently moreso to Augusten, who he really never had time for. From the boy dressing up like the family dog (whom his father always had time for) in order to get his dad's attention, to trying to decipher exactly what his dad is doing hovering over his bed in the dark, to attempting to find a father figure amongst a group of construction workers who come to work on their house, it's amazing that the young Burroughs even survived such a sad and terrorized upbringing. And it gets far worse before it gets better. After his father kills his beloved guinea pig (the scene where Augusten discovers this is one I will never, ever forget), the boy effectively turns on his dad, and so begins an explosive, enraged, emotional tug-of-war between the two. Tragically, even on his father's deathbed, it still rages.

While "A Wolf at the Table" is a departure from the typical Burroughs wit, it is also a mature, terrifying, and totally haunting story. If you're expecting "Running With Scissors II", you've come to the wrong place. But if you're interested in going where you need to go, then there is no better guide than Augusten Burroughs.