While the doctor is legitimate his methods are not and Augusten soon finds himself apart of these strange therapy sessions and even begins to know the doctor and his family on a personal level. Deidre begins to see Doctor Finch as a form of therapy for herself. Deidre, Augusten’s mother, has a love for poetry, feminism and the dramatic and when it is compounded with whatever illness she is battling makes for a troubling situation for Augusten. Augusten starts off as a very neat and tidy boy with a flair for fashion and often finds his mother’s antics and resulting behaviours distressing, even at such a young age. Shortly thereafter his father abandons him and so Augusten is left with his spiralling mentally ill mother. But crazy in a ‘gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God’ sort of way.”

Not in a ‘Let’s paint the kitchen red!’ sort of way. His mother was always dramatic and his father reclusive but they were a family.

Actual footage of me reading this book.Īugusten’s young life started off dysfunctional but still somewhat normal. I know this book is supposed to be somewhat humorous as that is one way the author has found a way to deal with the failings in his upbringing but I, for one, found nothing about this to be humorous. This book is the terrible car wreck of Augusten’s childhood and as readers, we are utterly absorbed and shocked at the wreck and mess that follows. But was that true? I wasn’t so sure.Īs a species, we have always been curious about tragedy, in that when something bad happens we can’t look away, like a terrible car wreck. “I told myself, ‘All I want is a normal life’.

Augusten burroughs goodreads