Multiple narrators cloud a tale of adolescence in a collapsing commune
Banks puts himself into the shoes of a sex offender
Perfect plan for your weekend delivered every Thursday
Augusten Burroughs (Sellevision, Running With Scissors) returns for another exorcism of his savagely dysfunctional childhood.
This time he's excavating his relationship (or lack thereof) with his monstrous father.
Daddy is a sinister alcoholic with psoriatic arthritis and rotting teeth who starves Augusten of attention and the child's pet hamster to death.
But amid the recovered memories and sensationalist accusations, the father is never developed beyond grotesque caricature.
The resulting psychodrama suggests Burroughs' life-story was milked dry of material long ago.
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My Ex Wife had my 10 year old son and 11 year old daughter read this book and then formed a "book club" consisting of herself and the children to discuss how simmilar Augustine's Father was to myself - Insisting to this day it is completly appropreate reading for children, and in particular for children of acromonious seperations. My daughter wrote a book report about "A Wolf at the Table" for her grade 6 class that to me was simply unbelievable, and the teacher did not even find this alarming. I am not insane, surley others would find this book completly inappropreate reading for children?
Posted on Fri 27 May 2011 01:44:13