Augusten Burroughs' "Running With Scissors"...I made it to page, oh, 85 or so. The book is supposed to be refelective of his actual screwed up childhood, so I feel for the guy, but I probably won't finish it. I know that real life is not Leave it to Beaver, squeaky clean, and is in fact far from it most of the time. But I personally couldn't stomach one more "c" word...blech, not to mention the outrageous scenes of homosexual, errr, encounters. I just think that good writing can be done with fewer in your face profanities and graphic depictions of events that could be described in a more abstract way. Great writers say more with less and don't rely on cheap words for shock factor. Case in point: Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants".
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Dear gosh, I agree -- I flipped through this "bestseller" whilst in B&N one afternoon; after seeing some of the content, I shuddered, and thought, "Uh, I can do without processing this!" Good grief.
I think Burroughs infuses sensationalism into his books via exactly that which you've described. Blech. No thanks.
You should check out the movie - it's on cable this week. Not as gross as the book, actually fascinating. Brad Pitt co-produced it, many great stars took part.
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