BOOKS
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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
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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.
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