Magical Thinking: True Stories

Magical Thinking: True Stories
by Augusten Burroughs

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Book Summary Information

Author: Augusten Burroughs
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-10-01
ISBN: 0312315953
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Picador

Book Reviews of Magical Thinking: True Stories

Book Review: Snap out of the spell
Summary: 2 Stars

I'm sick to death of Augusten Burroughs. Perhaps the most bizarre product of the literary fad that is memoir, Burroughs is the memoirist famous for being, well, a memoirist. Time was you had to do something interesting for people to want to read about you. Now you can apparently be interesting just because you say you are. I am at a loss to account for Burroughs' appeal (unless of course his magical thinking really has prevailed). His work - primarily that momentary curiosity, "Running With Scissors" - seems to be championed by semi-literate Gen-X closet conservatives flush with pride at having read their first book since grade school. And a Shocking Book, too. How edgy of them. How cool. The "true stories" collected here are, like most of Burroughs' work, apocryphal. He trades on the gimmick of supposedly embarrassing self-revelations - his victimhood, his alcoholism, his staggering selfishness, his standard-issue gay venom - but I don't buy it for a second. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that most of his work is fiction. And bad fiction at that. For example, a story like "The Rat/Thing" is simply bad fiction. Pretend it all really happened and it's not quite so bad because the shock value of true events slightly supplants the requirements of craft. But it's still a bad story. As are all the cloying recollections of life with various lovers which run like bad scenes from "Sex and The City". In story after story he squanders the opportunity to do anything worthwhile with perfectly good raw material, and instead just plays the smug queen. Even the better pieces here - such as the title story, and "I'm Gonna Live Forever" in which Burroughs recounts the perils of his burgeoning C-list celebrity - are distinguished not so much by what is being said as by the odd combination of neurosis and narcissism that seems to inform the style. That in itself might be interesting if it weren't so off-putting. I struggled through this. I laughed out loud twice in 252 pages. I smiled a few times, but mainly winced: not at the allegedly shocking content, but at the lame ham-fistedness of it all. Ultimately, Burroughs is just another mildly amusing gay guy who isn't Oscar Wilde. He isn't even David Sedaris. The central problem is that he has nothing to say - just a precocious way of saying it. If that blows your skirt up, fine. But count me out for the next round.

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Summary of Magical Thinking: True Stories

From the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors and Dry--a contagiously funny, heartwarming, shocking, twisted, and absolutely magical collection. True stories that give voice to the thoughts we all have but dare not mention. It begins with a Tang Instant Breakfast Drink television commercial when Augusten was seven. Then there is the contest of wills with the deranged cleaning lady. The execution of a rodent carried out with military precision and utter horror. Telemarketing revenge. Dating an undertaker and much more. A collection of true stories that are universal in their appeal yet unabashedly intimate and very funny.

It?s best to know this from the start: Augusten Burroughs is mean. Augusten Burroughs is also outrageously X-rated. If you can get past those two things, Burroughs might just be the most refreshing voice in American books today, and his collection of acerbic essays will have you laughing out loud even while cringing in your seat. Whether he is stepping on the fingers of little children or giving you the blow-by-blow on a very unholy act, Burroughs manages to do it in a way that fills conflicted fans with both horror and glee.

Spanning from the surprisingly Machiavellian portrayal of his role in a Tang commercial at age seven to his more recent foray into dog ownership, Burroughs has what seems to be an endless supply of offbeat life experiences. Much like earlier David Sedaris collections (Barrel Fever or Naked), there are occasional fits and starts in the flow of the writing, but ultimately, Magical Thinking is worth reading (and re-reading). If you?re familiar with Burroughs's memoirs, Running with Scissors, and Dry, you may find parts of Magical Thinking repetitive, since these essays bounce around in time between the other two. In fact, in an ideal world, this collection would have come first, as it offers an excellent introduction to Burroughs's fascinating life. --Vicky Griffith

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