A WOLF AT THE TABLE

Fans of Augusten Burroughs beware. If you are expecting vintage Burroughs you may be disappointed. I wasn't at all, but you may.
Burroughs' new book has me stunned. I knew it was going to be darker and a little more serious, but I was not however, prepared for what I read. His previous books perhaps left the general population relieved they had not experienced a comparable childhood and it left writers wishing they'd had something that good to write about. His previous books have this dichotomy where he seems removed from his story yet still so involved so you feel as if you can laugh at everything, even at the darkest moments.

In A WOLF AT THE TABLE however, he is wholly there and he is taking you down too.

We see parts of Burroughs' life that we have not seen in any of his other books. In the past we may have been left feeling as if his mother was crazy and part of the reason Burroughs had the childhood he had. We didn't see much of his father previously and I always slightly felt he left because he couldn't take the crazy. What A WOLF AT THE TABLE shows us in the beginning, is Burroughs' childhood with his father, a father wholly uninterested, disengaged, cold even. As the novel goes on, his father's games begin and start to unfold a terrorized Burroughs perching us on the edge of our seats, ready to take the bastard down ourselves but also ready to run for our lives. Burroughs provides an insight that not even therapists can give. It's something he seems to understand holistically and tells with blinding honesty and drama. I absolutely could not put it down even at times I wanted to.