About this title: The "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Running with Scissors" delves into new territory with his most personal and unexpected memoir yet. "A Wolf at the Table" is the story of Burroughs' relationship with his father, his stunning psychological cruelty, and the redemptive power of hope.
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Binding: Softcover
Publisher: St. Martin's Press, New York
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9781607512059ISBN:160751205X
Description: Very Good. Tight spine, clean copy. Illustrated wraps, edges lightly rubbed, corners slightly bumped. Text is clean and unmarked. 242 Pgs. read more
Edition: First Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: St Martins Pr, Gordonsville, Virginia, U.S.A.
Date Published: 2008
ISBN-13:9780312342029ISBN:0312342020
Description: Good. No Jacket. Cover has marks, edgewear, bumping, visible dents, scuffs-Bumped pgs-Few marks on pgs-Marks on pgs-Edgewear-Spine slant. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2009-03-31
ISBN-13:9780312428273ISBN:0312428278
Description: Very Good. Cover has a slight curl/crease. Otherwise in excellent condition. Clean cover and pages. Delivery confirmation included with US orders. read more
Binding: Softcover
Publisher: Picador USA
Date Published: 2009-03-31
ISBN-13:9780312428273ISBN:0312428278
Description: NEW. Softcover. From an inventory that is 100% brand-new, 100% direct from the publishers' distribution channel. We carry NO pre-owned, NO remaindered. We pack in CARDBOARD to ensure the pristine quality is maintained. (Bubble-wrap alone is NOT sufficient to protect from USPS equipment. ) Guaranteed brand-NEW, protected with CARDBOARD, your satisfaction is guaranteed. BKLUVID: 9780312428273. read more
Binding: Paperback
Publisher: Picador
Date Published: 2009
ISBN-13:9780312428273ISBN:0312428278
Description: New. Brand New! Buy with confidence-your satisfaction is guaranteed at B-Logistics! Due to the large scale of our operation, we do not have access to the specific contents/condition of our items. Please note that Expedited shipping is not available at this time. read more
"If you've read and enjoyed Burroughs' 'Running With Scissors' then there's really no excuse for not reading 'A Wolf at the Table' - purely because it provides the other half of the story.
Let me clarify. While Burroughs' earlier memoir revealed what a uniquely torturous childhood he'd had, it also presented it in a very John Irving kind of way - horrible, yet camp and darkly fabulous. There were, amongst the freaky parenting and bizarre psychotherapy (wankroom, anyone?) moments of happiness there, and it served to lighten the edge of the work.
That's not the case in this memoir. It speaks pretty much exclusively of Burroughs' father - a figure who's not really mentioned at all in the earlier work. And from what's contained here, it seems that mentioning him at all is something that's required a lot of time to pass - the man is truly monstrous to his son, who merely wants to be loved.
This is a strong, brave book. Burroughs' style is a little uneven, and I found my attention occasionally wandering - but his prose is much tighter this time around, and some of the horror of the family unit will quickly bring your attention back to the page.
This is a deeply, deeply sad book to read, but it's worthwhile. It's amazing Burroughs survived at all, let alone lived to write something as confronting as this."
"I do like Burroughs; I like his essays rather than his sustained writing. I feel like I'm the only one in America who didn't like Running With Scissors. This book...hmm. It's very frightening, and Burroughs as ever is compulsively readable. Yet I was occasionally confused; the jacket copy refers ominously to "the games", but that reference only appears once near the very end of the book and it's never clear what it means, exactly. This, linked with a scene in which Burroughs wakes up in the middle of the night to find his dog guarding him from his father in his bedroom and another scene where Burroughs' father, chopping wood, says "Very much I love you" with a sinister smile, makes me wonder if Burroughs is alluding to sexual abuse at the hands of his father. Yet Burroughs has always been very open about everything and anything, so it puzzled me why he would be so evasive. In addition, a suggestion that his father might have been a killer (of people, not just Burroughs' pets), is never really followed through. So I have to say I wondered idly whether Burroughs' mostly sense memories--as shrouded in terror-induced fog as they are--are really enough to sustain a whole book. It's a sad statement, I guess, to think that to stand out in the memoir market, one has to be very specific about the most horrific abuse in order to get noticed, so one that is somewhat vague, as this one is, gets "tut tuts" from reviewers who find it sort of "thin". At best, this book is a very evocative memoir about a childhood lived in a constant state of terror. At worst, it's a somewhat elliptical book that may frustrate some of his fans with its vagueness."
"In his first serious work Augusten remembers his father and it isn't pretty. I had a difficult time with this book. Its violent and his father is cruel and menacing. This just wasn't the Augusten Burroughs book for me."
"I read Running With Scissors and was alternately horrified and fascinated with the author's life. I read Scissors with a weird detachment, viewing it instead as a fictional memoir, because it was too difficult to read, imagining that what he described actually happened to him.
But, I did enjoy his writing style, the wit, and his sense of humor. I wouldn't describe his books as "funny" but there is a certain dark biting humor to them.
I started out reading this book, already mentally prepared, having read Scissors not too long ago. It turns out, this book is a bit different of a style. I still detached the little boy in the book from the author, because the story is just so sad.
The relationship between father and son filled me with longing and fear, two things Augusten himself seemed very familiar with. He has a very unique way of writing that really puts you in the moment with him. And several times, as I read, and he described his fear of his father coming to get him, I felt my own heart race, as if I was afraid his father would come get ME because I was reading his son's book.
The parts about the animals really bothered me. They link cruelty to animals to serial killers and Augusten often thought as a father as a serial killer, so I thought that was interesting. Augusten's father was definitely a menace to the family. I was especially sad when he turned Brutus against his wife and son.
All in all, a good read. The story was engrossing. Some people wrote bad reviews based on the fact that his early memories were "made up" but all stories are embellished, even memoirs. I thought those memories really added to the story and the book would have lacked something without them. They helped to add setting and make his dad seem more HUMAN, like he was once normal and wasn't anymore."
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