Here is a summary of a quite unique story.Running With Scissors is the
memoir of Augusten Burroughs. It
chronicles his life from age 9 to 17. During most of this time Augusten
lives with the family of his
mother''s rather unorthodox psychiatrist.
At the book''s beginning, young Augusten enjoys dressing in his
motherâs clothes, listening to music and is fascinated by shiny
things (mirrors, jewelry) and doctors. He lives with his Mother
(Deirdre) and
Father in rural Massachusetts. His mother is a
narcissistic poet who insists that she will some day be famous. His
father is a severe alcoholic and a Mathematics professor at the
University of Massachusetts. The relationship is dysfunctional and
violent. Following his mother''s first minor psychotic break she begins
seeing
dr. Finch, a psychiatrist from Amherst. Before long Deirdre
(Augusten''s Mother) and Augusten''s father divorce. Augusten and his
mother then move to Amherst.
Deirdre''s sessions with Dr. Finch are frequent and lengthy.
Augusten befriends the receptionist in the office whose name is Hope.
She is one of Dr. Finch''s many biological children.
Soon, Augusten and Deirdre make their first visit to the
Finch''s house. Augusten has a preconceived notion that the homes of
Doctors are all tasteful and luxurious. He is disappointed to find that
the Finch residence, although large, is rundown and filthy. He meets
two more of Dr. Finch''s daughters and the three of them play with an
old electroshock therapy machine.
Augusten at first stays with the Finches under the guise of
needing to be protected against his father. His mother stays elsewhere.
Eventually, Dr. Finch becomes Augusten''s legal guardian. Augusten''s
primary residence is at the Finch''s, staying with his mother only
occasionally.
Augusten begins writing in his journal, at times up to four
hours a day. Dr. Finch''s daughter Natalie is one year older than
Augusten and becomes his best friend. She is a crude and fearless girl
who at one point was placed under the legal guardianship of one of her
father''s patients-a forty year old failed tennis player who was also
her lover. Similarly, Augusten becomes the lover of Neil Bookman. Neil
was once the patient of Dr. Finch and eventually Dr. Finch adopted him.
He is twenty
years older than Augusten and coerces him into his first
sexual experience. From there the tables turn. Neil becomes somewhat
obsessed with Augusten, who is mildly verbally abusive to him. The two
are involved romantically and sexually for several years until Neil
disappears, and as of the end of the book is never heard from again.
While skipping school one day, Augusten walks in on his mother
during a sexual act with another woman. The woman''s name is Fern, and
she is a ministe''s wife. Deirdre is delusional about the
relationship''s future, wondering why Fern''s husband won''t support it,
and why Fern won''t leave her family. When it ends she immediately takes
up with Dorothy, another one of Dr. Finch''s patients. Dorothy is very
tolerant of Deirdre''s psychotic breaks, and in fact has numerous
issues of her own. She is not upset when Deirdre brings home a man from
a mental health retreat, or when she spends three days in a hotel room
with another woman.
Life with the Finches revolves around Dr. Finch. At first it
seems like an unordinary, humorously mad-capped world, but as the story
progresses we see that Dr. Finch has a number of nasty traits that are
not humorous in the least. He is an open adulter, approves of and
encourages sexual relationships between children and adults, and abuses
his influence as a doctor in a number of ways-such as helping Augusten
drop out of school before he is sixteen and being unscrupulous about
prescribing medication.
Agnes, his wife, is shouldered with the responsibility of
dealing with the needs and quirks of the numerous clients that come to
nds of her and treats her
in a humiliating manner. Hope, who adores her father, is prone to minor
psychological breaks, and makes most of her life''s decisions by
opening the bible to a random page, plopping her finger down, and
making an interpretation based on the word that her finger lands on.
Natalie has endured sexual coercion from Dr. Finch''s patients since
she was eleven years old. She is angry and boisterous, but seems much
more sound than her mother or Hope (Dr. Finch has at least three other
children that are only mentioned in passing). She is a steadfast friend
to Augusten and encourages him on several occasions to become a writer.
After years of living under Dr. Finchs roof Natalie and
Augusten get an apartment together and begin to attend community
college. Natalie excels in her classes, whereas Augusten drops out.
One week after his withdrawal from classes, Deirdre informs
Augusten that Dr. Finch has been using medication to manipulate her,
and that he once raped her. Natalie believes that his mother has had
another breakdown. Dr. Finch wants Augustenâs support in an effort to
have Deirdre hospitalized. Augusten believes his mother''s claims, and
when faced with choosing sides against his best friend, he runs away. He stays in a motel for a few days then gets his own place. He
is employed as a waiter at a steakhouse and begins working towards
moving to New York City.
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