I am not a fan of Augusten Burroughs. I think I can specifically remember the moment when I decided this. I was standing behind the counter at the Borders I was working for at the time reading Dry, Burroughs' retelling of his time as an Ad Exec and alcoholic, when I read a paragraph that struck...
Brilliant, esp. if you have a dark, inappropriate sense of humor. A memoir of a gay ad man struggling with alcoholism.Some kindle quotes:He tells me how once he [the author's undertaker friend] had a female body with a decapitated head and the family insisted on an open casket service. “Can you i...
(Today's review is much longer than Goodreads' word-count limitations. Find the entire essay at the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)I've mentioned here...
03/06/2014 RE-READI am going to describe each of these stories for you in a Victorian Chapter Title. Because it's fun. :)1.) Commercial Break. In Which Young Augusten Is Selected to Be In a Tang Commercial, But Discovers He is Horrible At Acting.2.) Vanderbilt Genes. In Which Young Augusten D...
I actually wrote two novels, and I didn’t love them—my heart just wasn’t in the writing. Then my friend Liz Stein made a suggestion that changed everything. “Why don’t you write about what happened after Dry?” Her husband, Luke Dempsey, immediately agreed. I realized this was exactly what I wante...
The most distracting thing was that I was getting this blow job from an undertaker at a prestigious funeral home, in the exact same viewing room where the wake for Rose Kennedy took place. “Right over there,” he said, after I shot my wad. We were naked, sitting on the thick carpet, with our backs...
Hayden asks from the couch, his doggie bed. “What?” “I said, are you okay?” “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. Why, do I seem weird?” “Because you don’t look well at all.” I close my notebook...
So much pure, diffused sun felt like a shoplifted luxury; like sleeping until eleven on a Monday morning. Even without my glasses, I could make out the heavy drapes and see that they were pulled all the way open. My first thought, What a spectacular morning, was followed i...
MARTIN’S PRESS: NEW YORK Copyright © 2008 by Island Road, LLC. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. Book design by Phil Mazzone ISBN-13: 978-0-312-34202-9ISBN-10: 0-312-34202-0 First Ed...