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Overall Summary
Running with Scissors is a memoir written by Augusten Burroughs in 2002. It focuses on his adolescent life, starting at age 12 when he was sent to live with his mother’s psychiatrist after experiencing a number of crises in her life. The book remained on the New York Times bestseller list for eight weeks.
Burroughs’ childhood is spent in a clean and orderly home. He worries about his clothes and hair, which are normal concerns for a child. His parents argue constantly in the background, though they eventually separate. Burroughs goes to live with his mother’s psychiatrist while she questions her sexuality; he lives there with Dr. Finch who has many adopted children as well as some of his own patients living in his house. There are no rules within this household, where young children have sex, smoke cigarettes and pot, rebel against authority figures, etc., but all of this seems to be dwarfed by Burroughs’ mother’s frequent psychotic episodes.
The Finch house represents the way Burroughs was used to living. It is dirty and infested with bugs, so much so that he believes he will fall through the stairs if he climbs them. Finch eventually begins to believe that God is communicating with him through his bowel movements. Incredibly, Finch develops a kind of divination to attempt to understand these messages.
Hope Finch’s cat is dying, so she decides to trap it underneath a laundry basket for four days. Burroughs’ mother is shown in more detail. She has an affair with the minister’s wife and ends that relationship when another woman comes into her life—an African American woman who turns out to be unstable as well.
A new patient arrives at a Victorian-era mental institution. This happens soon after another one of the patients’ breakdowns, during which she takes on the role of his father. The patient’s name is Cesar, and he tries to rape Burroughs unsuccessfully while he is asleep. Later on, Burroughs’ mother has another psychotic episode and tries to attack him while she moves her belongings out of the house. Eventually, Burroughs’ mother ends up restrained in bed by two orderlies in an effort to stop her from attacking anyone else inside or outside the house
Burroughs is gay. He tells Neil Bookman, the 33-year old son of his doctor. When he was 13 and 14 years old, Burroughs had a sexual relationship with Bookman which began when he was sexually abused by him. The two men form an unstable relationship in which Burroughs often changes his opinion about Bookman from one extreme to another. No one seems to be bothered by this at all, even though they’re both underage. Eventually, Bookman leaves for New York City and never contacts Burroughs again despite the family trying everything they can think of to get in touch with him.
Burroughs begins to form a relationship with one of Finch’s daughters, Natalie. She is older than Burroughs and hates him at first. However, they spend more time together after leaving the house. They look for jobs together as well as run around behind a waterfall and destroy the kitchen in the Victorian house.
In the end, Burroughs has a choice between defending Dr. Finch or his mother. The doctor is being accused of raping her in order to “cure” her of her psychotic breakdowns. He considers both families as his own and can’t choose sides because he believes that Finch did rape his mother even though she denies it.
Burroughs decides to leave Massachusetts and move to New York City, despite not having any kind of plan for what comes next but knowing he will figure something out along the way.
