Running with Scissors
Augusten Burroughs spent his childhood watching his mother, a frustrated poet, slide into psychotic breaks while his alcoholic father retreated into his study. At 12, his mother handed him over to her unorthodox psychiatrist Dr. Finch, who lived with his wife and children in a peeling pink Victorian in Northampton. The Finch household ran on dumpster scavenging, biblical bibliomancy, an electroshock machine in the kitchen, and a permissive policy that let a 13-year-old Augusten move in with a 33-year-old patient down the hall. Burroughs writes the book as a series of deadpan vignettes, building one of the most-read American dysfunctional-family memoirs of the 2000s.
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At 12, Augusten was handed over by his unstable mother to her psychiatrist's chaotic household, where dumpster dinners and tarot shaped a survival-by-deadpan childhood.
Augusten Burroughs has presented Running with Scissors (2002) as a memoir, but the family of his mother's psychiatrist sued him and Macmillan in 2005 disputing significant portions. The case settled in 2007 with the book reclassified as a book in some editions.
Yes. Ryan Murphy directed a 2006 film adaptation starring Annette Bening, Joseph Cross, and Brian Cox. The film follows the memoir's premise but received mixed reviews.
Running with Scissors was written by Augusten Burroughs, published in 2002 by Picador.
Running with Scissors is 336 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Running with Scissors takes most readers 5 to 7 hours to finish.
Running with Scissors is a standalone novel by Augusten Burroughs, not part of a series.
Running with Scissors is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
