Running with Scissors, Film Tie-In: A Memoir - Softcover

Burroughs, Augusten

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0312938853 ISBN 13: 9780312938857

Verlag: St. Martin's Paperbacks, 2006

Inhaltsangabe

Laufen mit Schere ist die wahre Geschichte eines Jungen, dessen Mutter (eine Dichterin mit Wahnvorstellungen von Anne Sexton) ihn weggegeben hat, um von ihrem unorthodoxen Psychiater aufgezogen zu werden, der eine auffällige Ähnlichkeit mit dem Weihnachtsmann hatte. Im Alter von zwölf Jahren fand sich Burroughs inmitten viktorianischer Elend wieder, der mit der bizarren Familie des Arztes lebte und sich mit einem Pädophilen anfreundete, der im Hinterhofschuppen wohnte. Die Geschichte einer Outlaw-Kindheit, in der Regeln unerhört waren und der Weihnachtsbaum das ganze Jahr über wach blieb, wo Valium wie Süßigkeiten konsumiert wurde, und wenn die Dinge langweilig wurden, könnte ein Elektroschocktherapiegerät Unterhaltung bieten. Der lustige, erschütternde und meistverkaufte Bericht über das Überleben eines gewöhnlichen Jungen unter den außergewöhnlichsten Umständen…
Laufen mit Schere Danksagungen
Dankbarkeit beginnt es nicht zu beschreiben: Jennifer Enderlin, Christopher Schelling, John Murphy, Gregg Sullivan, Kim Cardascia, Michael Storrings und alle bei St. Martin Press. Vielen Dank: 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 und Sheila Cobb. Ich möchte auch meiner Mutter und meinem Vater meine Wertschätzung dafür aussprechen, dass sie mir eine so unvergessliche Kindheit gegeben haben, egal wie unbeabsichtigt. Darüber hinaus möchte ich den realen Familienmitgliedern danken, die in diesem Buch dargestellt werden, dass sie mich in ihr Zuhause genommen und mich als eines ihrer eigenen akzeptiert haben. Ich erkenne, dass ihre Erinnerungen an die in diesem Buch beschriebenen Ereignisse anders sind als meine eigenen. Sie sind jeweils gute, anständige und hart arbeitende Menschen. Das Buch war nicht dazu gedacht, die Familie zu verletzen. Sowohl mein Herausgeber als auch ich bedauern jeden unbeabsichtigten Schaden, der durch die Veröffentlichung und Vermarktung von Running with Scissors entstanden ist. Vor allem möchte ich meinem Bruder dafür danken, dass er mit gutem Beispiel die Wichtigkeit der Einzigartigkeit demonstriert hat

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Über die Autorinnen und Autoren

AUGUSTEN BURROUGHS is the author of Sellevision. He lives in New York City.

Augusten Burroughs is the author of Dry, Magical Thinking: True Stories, Possible Side Effects, A Wolf at the Table and You Better Not Cry. He is also the author of the novel Sellevision, which is currently in development for film. The film version of Running with Scissors, directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Brad Pitt, was released in October 2006 and starred Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Annette Bening (nominated for a Golden Globe for her role), Alec Baldwin and Evan Rachel Wood. Augusten's writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers around the world including The New York Times and New York Magazine. In 2005 Entertainment Weekly named him one of “The 25 Funniest People in America.” He resides in New York City and Western Massachusetts.

Von der hinteren Coverseite

"OUTRAGEOUSLY AMUSING."
--Entertainment Weekly
"COMPELLING."
--USA Today
"BREATHTAKING."
--Tampa Tribune

THINK YOUR CHILDHOOD WAS WEIRD?
ENTER THIS TWELVE-YEAR-OLD'S WACKY WORLD

RUNNING WITH SCISSORS is the true story of a boy whose mother (a poet with delusions of Anne Sexton) gave him away to be raised by her unorthodox psychiatrist who bore a striking resemblance to Santa Claus. So at the age of twelve, Burroughs found himself amidst Victorian squalor living with the doctor's bizarre family, and befriending a pedophile who resided in the backyard shed. The story of an outlaw childhood where rules were unheard of, and the Christmas tree stayed up all year-round, where Valium was consumed like candy, and if things got dull, an electroshock therapy machine could provide entertainment. The funny, harrowing, and bestselling account of an ordinary boy's survival under the most extraordinary circumstances

"Promotes visceral responses (of laughter, wincing, retching) on nearly every page...funny and rich with child's-eye details of adults who have gone off the rails."
--The New York Times Book Review

Visit: www.augusten.com

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

Running with Scissors Acknowledgments
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.

 

Chapter One

Something Isn’t Right
 
My mother is standing in front of the bathroom mirror smelling polished and ready; like Jean Naté, Dippity Do and the waxy sweetness of lipstick. Her white, handgun-shaped blow-dryer is lying on top of the wicker clothes hamper, ticking as it cools. She stands back and smoothes her hands down the front of her swirling, psychedelic Pucci dress, biting the inside of her cheek.
 
“Damn it,” she says, “something isn’t right.”
 
Yesterday she went to the fancy Chopping Block salon in Amherst with its bubble skylights and ficus trees in chrome planters. Sebastian gave her a shag.
 
“That hateful Jane Fonda,” she says, fluffing her dark brown hair at the crown. “She makes it look so easy.” She pinches her sideburns into points that accentuate her cheekbones. People have always said she looks like a young Lauren Bacall, especially in the eyes.
 
I can’t stop staring at her feet, which she has slipped into treacherously tall red patent-leather pumps. Because she normally lives in sandals, it’s like she’s borrowed some other lady’s feet. Maybe her friend Lydia’s feet. Lydia has teased black hair, boyfriends and an above-ground pool. She wears high heels all the time, even when she’s just sitting out back by the pool in her white bikini, smoking menthol cigarettes and talking on her olive-green Princess telephone. My mother only wears fancy shoes when she’s going out, so I’ve come to associate them with a feeling of abandonment and dread.
 
I don’t want her to go. My umbilical cord is still attached and she’s pulling at it. I feel panicky.
 
I’m standing in the bathroom next to her because I need to be with her for as long as I can. Maybe she is going to Hartford, Connecticut. Or Bradley Field International Airport. I love the airport, the smell of jet fuel, flying south to visit my grandparents.
 
I love to fly.
 
When I grow up, I want to be the one who opens those cabinets above the seats, who gets to go into the small kitchen where everything fits together like a shiny silver puzzle. Plus, I like uniforms and I would get to wear one, along with a white shirt and a tie, even a tie-tack in the shape of airplane wings. I would get to serve peanuts in small foil packets and offer people small plastic cups of soda. “Would you like the whole can?” I would say. I love flying south to visit my grandparents and I’ve already memorized almost everything these flight attendants say. “Please make sure that you have extinguished all smoking materials and that your tray table is in its upright and locked position.” I wish I had a tray table in my bedroom and I wish I smoked, just so I could extinguish my smoking materials.
 
“Okay, I see what’s the matter,” my mother says. She turns to me and smiles. “Augusten, hand me that box, would you?”
 
Her long, frosted beige nail points to the box of Kotex maxi pads on the floor next to the toilet bowl. I grab the box and hand it to her.
 
She takes two pads from the box and sets it on the floor at her feet. I notice that the box is reflected in the side of her shoe, like a small TV. Carefully, she peels the paper strip off the back of one of the pads and slides it through the neck of her dress, placing it on top of her left shoulder. She smoothes the silk over the pad and puts another one on the right side. She stands back.
 
“What do you think of that!” she says. She is delighted with herself. It’s as if she has drawn a picture and placed it on her own internal refrigerator door.
 
“Neat,” I say.
 
“You have a very creative mother,” she says. “Instant shoulder pads.”
 
The blow-dryer continues to tick like a clock, counting down the seconds. Hot things do that. Sometimes when my father or mother comes home, I will go down and stand near the hood of the car to listen to it tick, moving my face in close to feel the heat.
 
“Are you coming upstairs with me?” she says. She takes her cigarette from the clamshell ashtray on the back of the toilet. My mother loves frozen baked stuffed clams, and she saves the shells to use as ashtrays, stashing them around the house.
 
I am fixated on the dryer. The vent holes on the side have hairs stuck in them, small hairs and white lint. What is lint? How does it find hair dryers and navels? “I’m coming.”
 
“Turn off the light,” she says as she walks away, creating a small whoosh that smells sweet and chemical. It makes me sad because it’s the smell she makes when she’s leaving.
 
“Okay,” I say. The orange light from the dehumidifier that sits next to the wicker laundry hamper is looking at me, and I look back at it. Normally it would terrify me, but because my mother is here, it is okay. Except she is walking fast, has already walked halfway across the family room floor, is almost at the fireplace, will be turning around the corner and heading up the stairs and then I will be alone in the dark bathroom with the dehumidifier eye, so I run. I run after her, certain that something is following me, chasing me, just about to catch me. I run past my mother, running up the stairs, using my legs and my hands, charging ahead on all fours. I make it to the top and look down at her.
 
She climbs the stairs slowly, deliberately, reminding me of an actress on the way to the stage to accept her Academy Award. Her eyes are trained on me, her smile all mine. “You run up those stairs just like Cream.”
 
Cream is our dog and we both love her. She is not my father’s dog or my older brother’s. She’s most of all not my older brother’s since he’s sixteen, seven years older than I, and he lives with roommates in Sunderland, a few miles away. He dropped out of high school because he said he was too smart to go and he hates our parents and he says he can’t stand to be here and they say they can’t control him, that he’s “out of control” and so I almost never see him. So Cream doesn’t belong to him at all. She is mine and my mother’s. She loves us most and we love her. We share her. I am just like Cream, the golden retriever my mother loves.
 
I smile back at her.
 
I don’t want her to...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: St. Martin's Paperbacks
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2006
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0312938853
• ISBN 13: 9780312938857
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar