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For several years now Scissors seems to be every celebrity’s answer to the question “who are you reading these days?” Vanessa Redgrave, who will appear in the film, told People magazine: “My latest absolute crush on a writer is Augusten Burroughs… The way he writes is funny and appalling and terrifying and brilliantly witty. I find myself catching my breath at the end of every paragraph."

Carolyn See used exclamation points in her review that ran in the Washington Post in July 2002. A stunned Burroughs told the same paper: “It's not possible to get a better review. It's as if I'd killed Carolyn See and was imitating her by wearing a wig and sneaking into the office to write the review myself."

The freakish people Burroughs describes are reminiscent of John Waters characters, and his writing has been compared to that of David Sedaris, another gay writer. Burroughs has been characterized as someone who makes shocking things seem quaint. Describing his mother’s mental illness, he writes that she was “not crazy in a let's paint the kitchen bright red! sort of way. But crazy in a gas oven, toothpaste sandwich, I am God sort of way,” adding, “Gone were the days when she would stand on the deck lighting lemon-scented candles without then having to eat the wax.” Burroughs has said that humor was his life raft growing up. The situations he writes about are often horrifying but the book is as hilarious as it is tragic.

None of the grownups in young Augusten’s life, including his own mother, saw to intervene in the relationship he now recognizes was sexually abusive. In a recent interview with The Age, an Australian newspaper, Burroughs explains that “to this day [his mother] would say 'You wanted it, I couldn't have stopped you. I always loved him, he was such a supporter of my writing…' He has been surprised by how little that aspect of his book seems to shock readers, telling The Washington Post that “it is not the part of the book that seems to be freaking people out the most. I hardly get any questions about that part."

Burroughs is definitely a survivor. He says he never let himself feel scared, depressed or self-pitying while growing up, telling The Age earlier this month: “That would be like swimming with the sharks and pausing to look at their fins in the water.” In May 2004 he told the UK Observer, “I'm not afraid to lose. I've lost everything a number of times. So while I want to protect what I have, I know I would survive. I'm someone who could land a plane if it were going down, or survive on an island. I'd be very clear-thinking. And that's because of my ridiculous childhood.”

At this point Running with Scissors has been on the New York Times bestseller list for more than eighty-two weeks. Burroughs has also written a column for Details magazine and is a regular contributor on NPR’s Morning Edition. He has written essays for Salon with titles such as “A Priest on His Knees: Some of the best sex in my life has been administered by men of the cloth” and “Beating Raoul: He was irritatingly perfect--until he took off his pants.” Entertainment Weekly named him one of the "15 Funniest People in America."

In addition to being successful and prolific, Burroughs is more levelheaded and less eccentric than people expect after reading his memoirs. Journalists have marked how surprisingly ordinary he is. “You want him to be curt, sardonic, reflectively embittered. You want him to say something gross,” wrote a Hank Stuever for The Washington Post in 2002. But instead he is “a cheerful, chatty, well-adjusted, 36-year-old man who walks with an optimistic, boyish gait… He tells funny jokes, and can't say enough good things about his boyfriend. He's so sweet you could barf.”

Burroughs describes his own personality as “straight,” presumably as in straight-laced. But he admits he has never related to the rainbow flags and parades. “My sexual orientation has just always been there. I’ve never known anything else but an attraction to guys” he told the Sydney Star Observer. “The fact I was gay was just absolutely no different from the fact that I’m right-handed… I think that somehow is reflected in the writing. At least I hear that a lot. People read me who don’t read gay authors.”

Burroughs retains his characteristic twisted humor when discussing the hapless lot he has drawn in life. The Washington Post quotes him saying: "Oh, I didn't live in Milwaukee in the 1990s, but I so would have been Jeffrey Dahmer's boyfriend if I had," he says, instantly enthralled by the thought. "I'd be like, 'Hi, what's your name? Jeffrey? Hey, I'm Augusten. I like your hair….'” But what makes Burroughs’ appeal so universal is that, even though his circumstances were extreme, his resilient spirit is something everyone can relate to, if only wishfully. He adds: “It would have been his head in the freezer. Guarantee you of that."

Visit the official Augusten Burroughs site

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