A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

Nominated for the 2009 Audiobook of the Year

As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we'd ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes.I wasn't altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?

When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl. Something dark and secretive that could not be named.

Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten's childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn't exist for him. This father was distant, aloof, uninterested.

And then the games began.

With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, A Wolf at the Table will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It's a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.

Running with Scissors, Dry, Magical Thinking: Real Tales, Potential Side Effects, A Wolf at the Table, and You Best Not Cry are among Augusten Burroughs' works. He's also the author of Sellevision, a novel that has been optioned for a film adaptation. Running with Scissors was adapted into a film in October 2006, directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Brad Pitt, and starring Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Annette Bening (who was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance), Alec Baldwin, and Evan Rachel Wood. Augusten's work has featured in a number of international journals and newspapers, including The New York Times and New York Magazine. He was voted one of the 25 Funniest Persons in America by Entertainment Weekly in 2005. He splits his time between New York and Western Massachusetts.