Author:Augusten Burroughs Binding: Hardcover Published: 2008-04-29 ISBN: 0312342020 Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
"Burroughs Running Out of Material..."
"Haunting and completely engaging"
"Do you have to love your father?"
"Sinister and Menacing"
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Editorial Review:
"As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we'd ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes...I wasn't altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?"
When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl. Something dark and secretive that could not be named.
Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten's childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn't exist for him. This father was distant, aloof, uninterested...
And then the "games" began.
With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, A Wolf at the Table will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It's a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.
Amazon Significant Seven, April 2008: When I started reading A Wolf at the Table, I thought I knew what to expect. Augusten Burroughs captures intense experience with an inexplicably cool remove, imparting a stillness and purity to emotions that would likely run amok in anyone else's hands. I love this quality of his writing, and it's present in full force in this memoir of a childhood spent in thrall to a predatory and deeply unpredictable father. What I wasn't prepared for was the suspense--the dread-filled, nearly sonorous waiting for the worst to happen. An artful sort of bait-and-switch happens in the telling: Burroughs brings you to the brink of a terrible catharsis more than once, but the break in tension never comes. It is profoundly sad, remarkably tender, and fueled by a sense of love and reverence that only a child knows. --Anne Bartholomew
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Burroughs Running Out of Material... If you have read Burrough's other memoirs, you will find this to be a big departure as it lacks the acerbic wit of the others. Unfortunately, without the humor, Burrough's writing is flat, dull, and unbearably boring. Here we have another "poor me," memoir written by a writer who has made millions off the genre, without the substance that made the others ones so entertaining. One has to wonder what he's going to write about once he runs out of people who have tortured him in the past. Maybe how mean all his... more info
Haunting and completely engaging I decided to read this book because I was pulled in by Running with Scissors by this author. I cannot say that I loved the other book but I could not put it down. I considered it to be like a train wreck. You know you should stop looking but you just can't help yourself. So, here I am again...becoming completely engaged with Augusten and his life. Whereas Running with Scissors was like a train wreck, this book pulls at your heartstrings. This book is written with the innocence of childhood. Full of... more info
Do you have to love your father? Hitler was somebody's father. Not actually true, but he could have been. Stalin was somebody's father, how's that? A Wolf at the Table explores Burroughs relationship with his father, continuing to flesh out the story from his earlier memoir. The story is brutally honest, or at least it seems so. A son who desperately wants his father's love and never truly understands that his father was never worthy of the effort. Do you have to love your father just because he's your father? One suspects once again... more info
Sinister and Menacing 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.
