A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
by Augusten Burroughs

A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
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Book Summary Information

Author: Augusten Burroughs
Reader: Augusten Burroughs
Performer: Patti Smith
Performer: Sea Wolf
Performer: Ingrid Michaelson
Performer: Tegan Quin
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2009-03-31
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Picador

Book Reviews of A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

Book Review: Story of Strength and Heartbreak...Or Is It?
Summary: 3 Stars

This story is basically the prequel to Running With Scissors. Its the story of Augusten Burroughs living with his mother, father and brother. Unlike Running With Scissors, there are no laugh out loud moments in this book. Burroughs matter-of-factly pours his most intimate feelings and childhood quirks onto paper then publishes it for the world to read. Some reviewers were saying that it was pretty much a big fat pity party Augusten Burroughs put on for himself and that the relationship between he and his father was not that bad. I can agree with the first part but completely disagree with the latter. If the stories told throughout this book are in fact true, then my heart breaks for the child in the book who is constantly pushed away by the father he adored. The story goes through many different accounts of betrayal, hate, animal cruelty,and so on and so forth. Although I felt bad for this poor boy who did some pretty outlandish things for attention, I felt that the book kind of dragged on and on. It's about 250 pages about a man who seemed to enjoy playing mind games with his son. Its also about a boy who acts in pretty strange ways: loves his father and strives for his attention and acceptance yet fantasizes about killing him? Very back and forth. There were a couple times as I was reading this book that I thought of "A Million Little Pieces"--Was this an accurate account of true life or was the story embellished? There is nobody alive to say one way or the other.

Summary of A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

Nominated for the 2009 Audiobook of the Year

?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

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