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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 23, 2004)
BOOKS .............▼............. Second verse as good as the first A u g u s te n B u r r o u g h s g oes D ry i n s e c o n d m e m o i r R u n n in g w it h S c is s o r s : A M e m o ir by Augusten Burroughs; Picador, 2003; $14 paperback n ce again, truth is stranger than fiction . Run ning with Scissors, the 2 0 0 2 best seller by gay author Augusten Burroughs, has recently been released in paperback. This is far from what one would expect from a “memoir,” mostly because it’s hard to believe this pervy melange o f chat» could he more than a modem anarchist’s myth— or that a reasonably well-adjusted (we assume) man comes of it. But even more surprising is that we end up caring about what happens to him. A t 12, Burroughs is sent by his m other to live with the family o f her nontraditional psychiatrist, a man who just happens to look a lot like San ta Claus. Burroughs eventually creates his own asylum am ong the fucked-up family o f misfits. A t the same tim e, his queer sexuality is budding, and he hooks up with a 34-year-old pedophile (and former psychi atric p atien t), hopping betw een the sheets and reading betw een the lines, all the while growing up faster— and different— than even he expected. Beyond quirky, the bcxik is brutally bemusing— a smarmy, squirmy story, captivating with its dark humor. Burroughs’ personal past is reminiscent of those middle school btxiks in which oblivious fami ly members with outlandish character ticks collide from distant orbits— those kinds of books that intentionally help outcast adolescents feel less freakish. Only the freakish world of this young, O The Portland Lesbian Choir, under the new direction of Darcy Schmidt proudly/ presents: alienated fag is unbelievably real and undeniably much less innocent. Above all, Running with Scissors is about survival. It’s a testament to the endurance and tenacity o f a young gay man forced to redefine normal. And it’s as inspiring as it is unusual. — Timothy Krause D r y : A M e m o ir by Augusten Bur roughs; St. Martin’s Press, 2003; $24.95 hardcover he unanimously positive reviews that greeted Augusten Burroughs Augusten Burroughs’ via co-workers in one of Dry's funniest episodes) first memoir, Running and the subsequent shotgun rehabilitation are with Scissors, were typ packed with liquor-induced humiliations that ically rife with David would make even Liza Minnelli blush. Sedaris comparisons. Like Sedaris, Burroughs is a T h e tone is relentlessly self-critical, hut post-Stonewall gay writer whose liberation minus the absolution begging that typifies so extends far beyond his sexuality. many recovery memoirs. Burroughs is very But Sedaris’ laughs come from holding a aware, in hindsight, of his own self-destructive mirror— one with cracks wide enough to provide behavior, ignorance and superficiality (“A rehab a healthy glimpse of die underlying hypocrisy, hospital run by fags will be hip. Plus there’s the pettiness and cruelty— to more or less ordinary, possibility of good music and sex,” he very mis everyday lives, while the abundant humor in takenly thinks to himself while checking into Burroughs comes from the incongruously deadpan Pride Institute, a gay substance abuse center), writer’s voice he uses to relate his decidedly but he never gives as generalized cautionary- singular, unusually ffee, sometimes awful life. tale homilies, the Big Lessons he’s learned. This sequel to Running with Scissors finds Instead, we’re left with the simple realiza the 20-something Burroughs living a driven tion that Burroughs was a human being guilty but luxurious yuppie existence within a M an of some particularly punishing mistakes and hattan ad agency. His best friends are an under possessed of the good sense to laugh at them, as taker and an HIV-positive investment banker well as the talent to make us do the same. He (who wryly calls himself an “A ID S baby”). generously wants us to learn nothing more Burroughs himself is a raging alcoholic, from his story than that real victory over our which, as it turns out, is quite compatible with flaws and errors comes when we can see how the advertising game. His descriptions of the tmly funny they are. frenetic rationalizations, the close calls, the — Chnstopher McQuiun J H inevitable intervention (delivered on the job T MORE REVIEWS H e ’ s t h e O n e by Timothy Jam es Beck; Kensington Publishing, 2003; $14 softcover imothy James Beck’s second novel, just released in paperback, is an implausible story told in an uninteresting way. Like many protagonists o f bad gay fiction, Adam Wilson is tall, handsome and well-built. He also lives in njral W isconsin, where he has a loving relationship with his family and a suc cessful business. Still, when a client’s project temporarily relocates him to New York City, he jumps at the chance. T h e rest of this thin story (the plot is thin, the hook is 360 pages) is about how Adam falls in love with Jeremy, another tall, handsome, well-built stud (h e’s the one, get it?) and schemes to meet and woo the beautiful and sensitive actor. In the M anhattan o f H e’s the O ne (an island o f 1.5 m illion), only a few dozen people really matter. T hey all know each other and know all about the rest. S o , when Adam wants to score an invitation to a party in order to bump into Jerem y all he needs to do is T m ention it and (voilà!) he happens to be ask ing a friend o f the host. All in all, H e’s the One is as contrived as an episcxle of Veronica’s Closet and just as forgettable, — Floyd Sklaver Q u e e r F e a r II Edited by Michael Rowe; Arsenal Pulp Press, 2002; $ 1 7 .95 softcover dolescence is a time when every thing confusing and inconvenient in .life— sex, family, our status in the world— enclose us like a pressure cooker. Teen-agers long for an outlet, and I’d be willing to bet that well over half of the audience for most of what falls under the “horror/fantasy” category of fic tion is younger than 20. T he recurrent images in horror— gore, blood, a fascination with the abject, with death, with the frailty of the human body— are, if you’ll indulge my dime store Freud, the half-sublimations of the revelatory teen-age epiphany that sex and death are, to our end lessly odd human psyches, inseparable. T h a t must have som ething to do with the A "Different Drummer: Songs for Peace" with special muscial guest Bridges Sot h I ».lo \ K i i u u i \ ' S t . Sp m l||||K y B rid geport L C C $10 advance t i i ' i u It s \ 1 \ P l e a s u r e . I n ( )ther W ords Books SBS h HB h H H i : k I In 11 » Ii i ’ii IDat-vcc y/*TV\ D 3 L a v r c o a C T * r T V »«. FFI: portlandlesbianchoiricohotmail.com c EVERY BOOK OF GAY EROTICA ALWAYS IN STOCK! j most vivid stories in Q ueer F ear II, the sec ond anthology o f queer-them ed short stories about, or at least aimed at, the young adult reader. T h e authors (most o f them lesser- known and male, though well-known female Poppy Z. Brite pops up here) are surprisingly sharp and sophisticated. A ny anthology is a mixed bag, and there are some ordinary-going-on-stale offerings here, and some stories don’t quite fit the bill: Steve Duffy’s w ell-constructed “N um bers,” a literary A ID S quilt, has the queer and the fear, but it’s hardly “horror fictio n ” befitting this volume. N o , th e teens and teen-m inded have it here, w hether it’s S c o tt T releav en ’s “Bugcrush,” a creepy-craw ly tale o f high school crushes, Josep h O ’B rie n ’s p astich e o f queer avant-garders like W illiam S . Burroughs and D en n is C o o p er in “a rtG o d ” and— best o f all— David C o ffey ’s “O n B ein g a F etish ,” w hich deliciously m ocks (from beyond th e grave, no less!) th e lim itation s o f sexual fetishes and the duplicitous, carbon-cop y world o f gay In tern et c h a t room s. T h e best stories in Q ueer Fear II are pulpy and nasty— bite-sized pieces that go down easy while you smoke a clove and wait for your black nail polish to dry. —C M J H ( kw )M en of the W orld. Young /tussles, Latinos drop trou io r photog Kristen Bjorn. $48. The Compleet Sieve. How to become tbe obedient I'U pup dog of his dreams. $15.85. @ > Sex Disasters. Jammed handcuffs, a cap at tbe door, the lost condom. Lefts, tips. $16.95. DOWNTOWN @ 9 2 7 SW OAK • 226-8141 Corner o f Sandy B/vcf. fi N t ta tti 3 1 0 6 NE 6 4 t h • P o r tla n d , OR 9 7 2 1 3 ZZZZZZ 5 ZZ 2 Z
