Toil & Trouble by Augusten Burroughs

Toil & Trouble by Augusten Burroughs

From the number one New York Times bestselling author comes another stunning memoir that is tender, touching...and just a little spooky.

"Here's a partial list of things I don't believe in: God. The Devil. Heaven. Hell. Bigfoot. Ancient Aliens. Past lives. Life after death. Vampires. Zombies. Reiki. Homeopathy. Rolfing. Reflexology. Note that 'witches' and 'witchcraft' are absent from this list. The thing is, I wouldn't believe in them, and I would privately ridicule any idiot who did, except for one thing: I am a witch."

For as long as Augusten Burroughs could remember, he knew things he shouldn't have known. He manifested things that shouldn't have come to pass. And he told exactly no one about this, save one person: his mother. His mother reassured him that it was all perfectly normal, that he was descended from a long line of witches, going back to the days of the early American colonies. And that this family tree was filled with witches. It was a bond that he and his mother shared--until the day she left him in the care of her psychiatrist to be raised in his family (but that's a whole other story). After that, Augusten was on his own. On his own to navigate the world of this tricky power; on his own to either use or misuse this gift.

From the hilarious to the terrifying, Toil & Trouble is a chronicle of one man's journey to understand himself, to reconcile the powers he can wield with things with which he is helpless. There are very few things that are coincidences, as you will learn in Toil & Trouble. Ghosts are real, trees can want to kill you, beavers are the spawn of Satan, houses are alive, and in the end, love is the most powerful magic of all.

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.