For the first hundred pages or so, I loved this quirky memoir as a love letter to Western Massachusetts, the bizarre valley where I have settled. The characters were unusual and dramatic, with dubious psychotherapeutic methods and "evolving" spirituality. A family uses Bibles as Magic 8 Balls in a way that is offensive and yet oddly sympathetic. Children receive almost no guidance on how to make positive choices. Characters go to places like the Hampshire Mall and Amherst Cinema, which are familiar locations I loved seeing in a national bestseller.
But then the book got really sexually graphic and dark, and I gave up. When the teenaged author walks in on his mother engaging in oral sex with a married woman, that is shocking, but then when he is forced to engage in a similar activity, described in graphic detail, with a man twenty years older than he is, I made the decision that this book is really not for me. I imagine that if you can get through the graphic (and, in one case, felonious) sex, there is a lot to like in this book, as Burroughs is a witty author with a wonderful eye for detail and a masterful sense of pacing. But the content was just too much for me, and I can't recommend this book.
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More Detail For Running with Scissors A Memoir
- Running with Scissors
- English
- First Edition
- Paperback
- gelatine plate paper
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