A Wolf at the Table

I took the day off work this past Friday and spent a good hour of my morning finishing Augusten Burroughs's memoir, "A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father."  I was somewhat familiar with Burroughs's writing already, having sampled his other memoir, "Running With Scissors" last spring.  I thought that I more or less knew what to expect going into this book, but like all good writers Burroughs managed to throw in some curve balls.

In this book Burroughs recounts his childhood and his feeble attempts to create some type of fulfilling, nurturing relationship with his father.  For a lot of his adolescent years, Burroughs and his mother are constantly on the run from Burroughs's father and his alcoholic rages.  Despite these traumatic episodes, Burroughes desperately seeks any type of affection from his father, yearning for even the slightest hint of acceptance.  While the author never comes out and blatantly labels his father as psychotic, a disturbing picture is painted of a man who constantly threatens to murder his wife and son, kills his son's beloved guinea pig, and stands idly by while the family dog viciously attacks a neighbor.

At times the story is so unbelievable you're positive you must be reading a work of fiction.  The writing is raw and uninhibited.  Burroughs doesn't hold anything back and nothing is sugar coated.  At times reading this story made me feel sad, horrified, and uncomfortable.  I thought to myself on numerous occassions, How could anyone survive a life like this?  Well, survive he did.  And surprisingly Burroughs keeps in contact with his father until the man is lying on his deathbed.  And even then, he refuses to give Burroughs the affection he has been searching for all his life. 

The whole book is really a whirlwind of emotions and situations that seem too outlandish to be true.  I think that in terms of how to write a memoir, this is exactly what one should strive for.  The details are not overly obnoxious and do a comendable job of holding the reader in each scene.  Burroughs obviously had a lot of overwhelming material to work with when writing this book, but I never once got the impression that he was looking for pity because of what he had gone through.  His focus on the story was very evident, and never once did he stray off-course. 

The memoir is an interesting category of writing, and when it's done right the result is a very satisfying reading experience.  This is definitely a highlight of the genre, and definitely worth checking out.