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comment by kleinbl00
kleinbl00  ·  3137 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: August 24th: What are you reading this week?

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2007/01/burroughs200701

It's a hurtful fucking book, utterly devoid of love or compassion for anyone but Augusten Burroughs. You don't see that kind of hatred in Mommy Dearest.





user-inactivated  ·  3137 days ago  ·  link  ·  

This is a tricky issue, and I don't want to get into an argument with you. I'll just say bad things were done on both sides.

On a slightly different note, more related to my original comment: the stuff he describes in his book matches with scary precision stuff I experienced as a kid. And it worries me that if I were ever to write a memoir about the psychologically unstable people who tortured and abused me, that I'd be publicly excoriated for doing so.

kleinbl00  ·  3137 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Then write something else.

We all got baggage. If you define yourself by the hurt you've felt then you open yourself to be redefined by those you accuse. "Bad things were done by both sides" isn't an argument that holds a lot of water when the memoirist is forced to recant. If the truth isn't interesting enough don't lie and pretend it's real.

I'll say this - if you aspire to be Augusten Burroughs there's zero point in us conversing further.

Edited to add: if you want to read a black bunch of biography from someone who doesn't say "it's all true!" about made-up shit so that he can feel better about himself, Jerry Stahl is your guy.

user-inactivated  ·  3137 days ago  ·  link  ·  

(dazed) Um... ok then. Have a good day.