running with scissors by augusten burroughs

Mr. Turcotte claimed that all the events in the book are sensationalised and paint his family very unflatteringly.īurroughs settled with the Turcottes and agreed to call the work a “book” instead of a “memoir”, but continued to maintain that all events in it are entirely true. Running with Scissors has received a lot of criticism particularly because Burroughs was sued for defamation by the Turcotte family who claimed that the Finches in the book are based on them. There was never a dull moment in the crazy Finch household and there are multiple moments of slapstick hilarity – in one incident, Dr Finch believes that God is talking to him through his faeces and he tries to decipher these messages, even sending his conclusions to his patients in a newsletter. The psychiatrist and his children were nuttier than the shrink’s maddest patients, but Burroughs managed to acclimatise himself and form close bonds with the Finch children.

Life there was a total turnaround from what he was used to – the Finches lived in abject squalor with scant consideration for personal hygiene, and the children followed no rules because Dr Finch believed that anyone older than 13 years should be in charge of their own lives. His parents were constantly having violent fights and when they finally decided to divorce, Burroughs was sent to live with his mother’s psychiatrist, Dr Finch, whom he was later adopted by. Running with Scissors is a memoir recounting American author Burroughs’s outrageous adolescent life.Īs a child, Burroughs was a neat-freak, obsessive about keeping his hair, clothes and surroundings picture-perfect.

Running with scissors by augusten burroughs