Do not know why I did not like the memoir: Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. Back cover book blurbs said "hilarious", "funny", "you have to laugh" and, not to be repetitious, "intoxicating hilarity". The book did not bring me any smiles; no chuckles or laugh out loud moments. Gross is not exactly the word I want to describe it.
I have known all kinds of weird people in my life, especially living on the streets of Long Beach. I have been in filthy homes, lived with cockroaches, known men who were raped as children, in addition to reading all kinds of true (and fictional) crimes stories. This book should not have creeped me out, yet it did. I could not work up any sympathy for Burroughs, nor find any redeeming or likable people in his life.
Lazy, selfish, irresponsible might describe all the kids and the adults who allowed it, being a bit lazy, self-centered, and irresponsible themselves.
A man had a room in a barn where he slept. Book did not call him homeless. There was also "..a pack of hippies that traveled form barn to barn all across America."
When Burroughs parents divorced "..my mother and I had nowhere to live. The house was to be sold; the profits split. But until then, we were homeless." Yet the author does not share any living on the streets tales with readers. I believe a minister's wife found them an apartment to live and they never spent a night on the streets.
Burroughs' mother brought home a man described as a lumberjack home with her from a mental health facilty when she was released. When she kicked him out a day or so later: "Being mentally ill, temporarily homeless and wanted by the law, the only logical place for him to go was to Dr. Finch's."
The psychiatrist encouraged his family and patients to let out their anger. A lot of yelling, smashing of things in their lives. Holding anger inside is unhealthy. I would agree. "...depression - anger turned inward."
Know that feeling quite well.
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