Dear Readers,

How did Augusten Burroughs endure a childhood of abuse, a young adulthood of addiction, and a present of free-floating anxiety about doctors, doll-haunted inns, and college sweatshirts? With a morbid imagination, an affinity for life’s absurd aspects, and, actually, an optimism trickling beneath that famous deadpan. If the tragicomic Running with Scissors and Dry were almost too intense, Possible Side Effects, with stories culled from his earliest memories to today, offers up man-in-full Burroughs; his current life (including a loving partner) far from bleak, his observations just as bizarrely touching and beautifully brilliant. Oh, yeah: He’s still piss-in-pants funny.

In “Killing John Updike,” present-day Burroughs starts a death-watch on Updike (his first editions will be worth bajillions!), and wonders how much one of his own tomes might fetch when he kicks it. “Moving Violations” hits I-95 with teenaged Augusten and “Druggy Debby”; to scare bad drivers straight, the vigilante friends bear handmade signs with tips (“Use your blinker!”) and, ahem, striking images. “The Forecast for April” is a moving, haunting portrait of a mother’s kind, attentive friend whose bookshelf is a coffin—to be used later. As a kid, Augusten would peel the crusts off white bread and compress the remaining innards into a ball, eating it like an apple. Me too! No wonder he’s my hero.

Justin Ravitz
Associate Editor, QPB