Running with Scissors: A Memoir
Running with Scissors: A Memoir
Gratitude doesn’t begin to describe it: Jennifer Enderlin, Christopher Schelling, John Murphy, Gregg Sullivan, Kim Cardascia, Michael Storrings, and everyone at St. Martin’s Press. Thank you: Lawrence David, Suzanne Finnamore, Robert Rodi, Bret Easton Ellis, Jon Pepoon, Lee Lodes, Jeff Soares, Kevin Weidenbacher, Lynda Pearson, Lona Walburn, Lori Greenburg, John DePretis, and Sheila Cobb. I would also like to express my appreciation to my mother and father for, no matter how inadvertently, giving me such a memorable childhood. Additionally, I would like to thank the real-life members of the family portrayed in this book for taking me into their home and accepting me as one of their own. I recognize that their memories of the events described in this book are different than my own. They are each fine, decent, and hard-working people. The book was not intended to hurt the family. Both my publisher and I regret any unintentional harm resulting from the publishing and marketing of Running with Scissors. Most of all, I would like to thank my brother for demonstrating, by example, the importance of being wholly unique.
Customer Review: Nearly a masterpiece of white trash literature
This is a memoir (and a painfully sad one at that) of an boy ill-raised and neglected by a wildly irresponsible mother and psychologist-friend. Such brutal neglect is when a 33 year old pedophile molests him (a 13 year old boy then) on a regular basis and masks the relationship as “doing what lovers do”. The mother and psychologist-friend see nothing wrong with the “relationship” and turn a blind eye. Another is when the psychologist-friend instructs his daughter to scoop out his feces from the toilet to let sunbake in the backyard. Although Burroughs presents this as a dysfunctional family at it’s wierdness, there is obviously something more sinister going down, which Burroughs fails to see or present. On the upside, the author’s wit and humor transcends his personal horror stories. There are moments in the first part of the book that are so shocking and funny, it’s like nothing you’ve ever read before. Half way through the book the reader may find themselves tortured by a long yarn of people actiing dysfunctional. Rarely, if ever, does the book bother to go to any level deeper than freak story after freak story. Surely there are readers out there who would find the morbid humour in this book a masterpiece of the white trash literature. I certainly did, and after about 1/2 way through the book I decided I had enough fun.
Customer Review: Late to the party (and I don’t regret it)
That anyone can read this book and think it is even in the least bit humorous, is beyond me.
I purchased this book because as an avid reader of classics, I enjoy dipping my toes back into what the populace at large is reading. And just as I found with ‘The Kite Runner,’ and ‘Water for the Elephants,’ my eyes were once again opened to a public that knows nothing of the written word, its use, its subtleties and its nuances. The reading public at large, if one can base an opinion of such on best sellers such as Running with Scissors, etc, have no idea what good literature is and will read anything that is placed before them.
That said, there are some redeeming qualities about the work in general. When an author can make me actually feel something, regardless of overall story, I consider their job halfway complete. Reading through some of the scenes a knot formed in the pit of my stomach, and at once I felt a terrible sorrow for the boy, and the situation that he was placed in. For example, in the scene describing his first “meeting” with Bookman I felt as though I needed to shower when it was over because I felt as dirty as the author. That’s good writing! And throughout the work, there are several scenes in which the emotion was not only being read, but felt.
Overall, I wouldn’t say that I enjoyed the book - it was far too disturbing for that. But I will say that the book was entertaining and insightful in that it further strengthened my belief that behind every closed door and white painted picket fence, there are things going on that would sicken us if we were allowed a peek.
Running with Scissors is neither a work of genius nor a classic. It is a mildly entertaining peek into the lives of some very, very disturbed and troubled (and troubling) people.
Three Stars.
Like all of us who swear that we will never do something and then sheepishly retract it Gilbert has lived to eat her words. In her second and more pragmatic memoir, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage (Viking) [4 stars], Gilbert bumps
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