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The most incredible thing about Augusten Burroughs' bare-all memoirs is that after you have read the disturbing thoughts and anecdotes of the author, you feel as if you know him - that somehow, by being a fly on the wall as he loses his virginity (Running with Scissors), confronts his psychopathic father (A Wolf at the Table), and creates a best-selling collection of true short stories (Magical Thinking) you have somehow bonded. And despite all logic, you can't help but think you have found your new best friend. "Oh yeah, I get that a lot," laughs Burroughs.
It's 5pm on a Wednesday evening and I am dialling the Mandarin Hotel in Washington DC. When the telephonist begins her standard "Welcome" monologue, I ask for Augusten Burroughs. She hesitates and I feel stupid. What was I thinking? Of course he wouldn't use his real name. But then a voice comes on the line, "Hello, this is Augusten Burroughs."
I apologise and admit it feels weird talking to him, knowing everything I know. He laughs. "Yes, people know a great deal about me, some would say the best of me, from my books." Which poses an interesting question: is Augusten Burroughs on paper the same person in real life? "Yes, one and the same. I have an unwritten contract with my readers to tell the whole truth, no matter how bad it makes me look. People relate to and respect emotional honesty. And it's rewarded, it really is. You don't end up feeling vulnerable - in fact I have never felt more accepted and part of the human race."
It's the telling of the most intimate stories of Burroughs' dysfunctional life that have led to his success. His latest instalment, A Wolf at the Table, is essentially a prequel to the immensely popular Running with Scissors. It deals with Burroughs' relationship with his father, John G. Robison, a philosophy professor - a subject, he says, that could not be summed up in two paragraphs, "fitted into a neat little box", in one of his previous works. Merely trying to confine it unleashed "a Pandora's box of emotions".
"There is no doubt that what I had as a father was a sociopath," he says. "There was something inhuman about him. The long laughter in the basement ... he really was a predator." The book opens with the young Augusten being chased through the woods, late at night. It is the stuff horror movies are made of - young boy, dark woods, a primeval fight for survival with a knife-wielding psychopath in hot pursuit. In his case, however, the psychopath happens to be his father.
By Burroughs' own admission, A Wolf at the Table is a darker, more intense story than Running with Scissors. His much-loved sense of humour is purposely absent, something he realised could alienate fans. "My sense of humour is really not much more than a defence mechanism," he says. "It is a reaction to catastrophic stress. I knew some people would be disappointed in not having the funny Augusten in this book. That it would be a 'love it or hate it' reaction but what has surprised me is the intense response. People have really been able to relate to this story, either because their father had similar faults or as one reader told me, simply to be thankful for the father they have."
The matter-of-fact way in which Burroughs relates traumatic events allows the reader to completely immerse themselves in the story. He is able to make his extraordinary life seem ordinary so each reader can relate to the confusion, hurt and anguish of a young boy needing the love and acceptance of his father. For Burroughs, the book was both a torment and triumph to write. "When my father died in 2005, I thought I would feel this great big hole, this belated grief. Instead, all I felt was free. It was then I had a burning need to tell this story."
And tell it he does with his unique blend of emotional integrity and vivid imagery. Some would say this sort of raw writing takes a great deal of courage. "For me," says Burroughs, "it's less about courage and more about the fact that I just don't give a shit."
* A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir (Picador $37.99)
