A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Burroughs
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Book Reviews of A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
Book Review: Sinister and Menacing
Summary: 5 Stars
From the cover photo of the bent fork, the book builds to present the father as a menacing entity in the midst of seemingly neutral behavior (emotionally distant at best). It's about as edgy as you can get, not sure if the next paragraph will unveil the true "wolf" or if it will be tempered with sympathy for the father's pain. Awesome.Book Review: All The Better To Break Your Spirit, Son
Summary: 5 Stars
We've read much about the dysfunction of Augusten Burroughs's life, starting with his 2002 memoir "Running With Scissors" in which he described the bizarre experience of living with his mother's psychiatrist during the tumult of his adolescence. Though he briefly touched upon his parents' broken marriage in that memoir, he takes a magnifying glass to it here in "A Wolf At The Table", a book centered around the severely strained and demoralizing relationship between Augusten and his father John G. Robison, a former professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
With broad beastly strokes, Burroughs paints a dark portrait of his father, an alcoholic who neglected him as well as treated him like an ultimate hindrance and burden. The problems with Burroughs's mother Margaret are revisited, her consistent escapes from the horror of their home and her constant warnings of "your father isn't safe to be around" creating an early stigma. The problems of his older brother John Elder Robison are also hinted at; Robison published his own memoir in 2007 about coping with Asperger's syndrome.
Burroughs's writes of wanting physical affection so badly from his father that he went to ridiculous measures to achieve it, all to no avail. At 6 years of age, he realizes that his father offers more affection towards the family dog Cream and in response fashions a canine get-up from construction paper. He even goes so far as to confiscate some of his father's clothes and stuffs them with towels to create a surrogate body for cuddling, his father so emotionally unavailable for even the simplest gestures of physical affection.
Augusten's blind love would soon turn to festering hatred, his wrath nursed by the death of his beloved pets due to his father's lack of compassion as well as his drunken malice. He even begins conjuring fantasies of violence and murder, one in particular where he kicks him off the edge of a high secluded cliff to his death. After a domestic dispute one fateful evening, his brother pulls him from the house in the dead of night and teaches him how to shoot a gun, telling him, "The fact is, you aren't safe in that house anymore. You have to be able to protect yourself because I won't be around."
Burroughs even describes his father's smile as "wrong" and addresses him as "Dead" instead of "Dad", a term that presages the nothingness of John's heart. John Robison's image becomes encompassingly nightmarish, made all the more sinister by the fact that he is not overtly violent; there is instead an unpredictable and calculating enmity that lurks just beneath the surface of his psoriasis-stricken shell. In the end there is no redeeming factor - while John lies emaciated and dying from complications from a past injury, he cannot (or will not) offer even one word to Augusten, utterly resigned to their estrangement. All of this torturous emotion experienced vicariously through Burroughs's story makes for a very bleak and grievous yet intensely absorbing read. It is, without a doubt, one of the best memoirs of 2008.
Bottom line: Burroughs's memoir can read like a work of fiction at times, the author such a great storyteller that one begins to doubt the validity of his accounts. With all the other strangely fascinating memoirs Burroughs has published thus far, his one work of fiction (Sellevision) pales in comparison to the painful complexities of his real life. Judging by what's happened to him so far in his now 43 years and counting, I'm sure there are still a wealth of perversely enthralling true stories he has yet to tell.
Book Review: A little slow, a little dull
Summary: 2 Stars
After reading positive reviews, I was looking forward to this book. But I wasn't entertained or informed (two things I like in books).
Instead I found a book that moved too slowly, with details that I didn't find relevant or important to the reader such as supermarket expeditions, septic systems installed etc. (obviously to the author they had greater relevance, but I was bored reading them). The story didn't seem to flow very well, and because of this, I found myself skim reading over some paragraphs in order to find something more interesting in the tale.
As memoirs go, its not a great one...........
Book Review: Not your typical Burroughs Book
Summary: 2 Stars
If you looking for the same acerbic and self-mocking humor that made you enjoy the other Burroughs book DO NOT READ this book. Burroughs includes a handful of humorous jokes in this book, but by and large it is a meditation on the deep-seated hatred he has for his biological father. As he remembers it he never had a real father son relationship with his father. Never played catch with and clearly never got any advice from his father. Augusten is able to paint an almost inhumane picture of the very man that helped spawn him.
The first 100 pages are rather slow and the episodes reveal the common theme that Augusten's father was not ever a father and was more a sociopathic alcoholic than an adult qualified to have children. The second half of the book is written better with more details on the impact his father had on his life. The anecdotes are more telling and Augusten's pain comes through lucidly. One can't help but think Augusten wants the reader to feel sorry for him. The other books, while they are humorous, the anecdotes are depressing and when you think back to his previous books you can't help but think, Augusten's terribly childhood, especially his lack of relationship with his alcoholic father naturally lead him to his own reckless lifestyle.
Thankfully many of the anecdotes in this book are new to paper, but the book is just so depressing.
Book Review: Almost to close to the soul
Summary: 5 Stars
The saying "a perfect childhood is a waste of time" points to the lack of learning of such an unlikely upbringing: No wonder Augusten has become such an awesome writer!!
Our mind suppresses bad memories, unless we dig deep. Augusten's learning and ability to dig deep (amazing recollection of early childhood) is almost to close for comfort if you have been brought up with similar, ahum, challenges. It ripped me; it pushed all my buttons, made me so angry, so sad, so scared, so alive within my own past. It was a great experience to read, absorb and subsequently move on!!
I hope that other readers "enjoy" the same and BIG Thank you to Augusten for sharing himself so courageously with us!!