Murphy conveys little sense of real anguish or danger, and he holds the characters at arm's length.' Scott of the New York Times states, 'Despite the tale's undeniably horrific elements, Mr. Burroughs, as himself, makes a small appearance at the end of the film next to the actor who portrayed him. The book was eventually optioned and made into a feature film of the same name, written and directed by Ryan Murphy and starring Alec Baldwin, Annette Benning, Brian Cox, Even Rachel Wood, Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Joseph Cross as Augusten Burroughs. As online book reviewer Amanda Cuda states, 'It's not a comforting read, but it is a fascinating, disturbing and, yes, funny one, proving that humor may not relieve pain entirely, but can make it easier to bear.' The Turcotte family, according to Vanity Fair, was outraged by the memoir and sued.

The book focuses on Burroughs' childhood and teenage years, telling all about his parents' trouble and the time he spent with the Turcotte family (their name was changed to Finch in the book). His next book was the memoir Running with Scissors (2002), which was loved by every critic and instantly jumped onto the New York Times Bestseller list where it stayed for 150 weeks. The book got mixed reviews from people who praised it, such as Bret Easton Ellis and people who panned it such as Brian Raferty of Entertainment Weekly who said, 'Burroughs may have tuned into a fine target, but his humor-is there anything more lame than a running Celine Dion joke?-leaves Sellevision with fuzzy reception.' It was a rough start, but Burroughs did not stop there-the book has since been considered for a TV series adaptation. His first book, Sellevision (2000), is a story that centers on a few people who are all affiliated with a home shopping network called Sellevision. He left the industry to pursue his aspirations as a writer. In 1989, he was invited to work for Ogivy & Mather in New York and over time worked his way up to high-paying positions and maintained a successful advertising career for nearly 18 years.

According to his website, instead of working in the technology industry, Burroughs moved to San Francisco and got a job in the advertising industry, becoming the youngest copywriter in the city at nineteen. His brother, John Elder Robison, is a New York Times Bestselling author.īurroughs dropped out of school in the sixth grade at age 17, he received his GED in Computer Programming and System's Analysis and Design, and at age 18 he officially changed his name to Augusten Xon Burroughs. His father worked at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst as the head of the Philosophy Department and his mother is a writer and poet. His parents were Margaret Robison and the late James G. Augusten Xon Burroughs was born on Octoin Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with the name Christopher Robison.

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