From my blog: I just finished Augusten Burroughs' fifth book (and fourth memoir) and even though the whole James-Frey-A-Million-Little-Pieces-Got-Caught-Lying-to-Oprah thing has had more than its 15 minutes, here I go starting it all up again.

It is hard to say anything bad about someone's memoir (I'm talking bad writing and egotistical promotion aside - see: A Fractured Mind by Robert Oxman). I mean the definition alone (a narrative composed from personal experience) indicates that the book is about what the author REMEMBERS not what may or may not have actually happened. Good lord, my brother and I spend half of our lives fighting about the sequence of events for almost every memory we think we share. And my mother can't solve the arguments! Because that's how memory is.

As Nicky Flippers said in "Hoodwinked" (a really predictable and not very funny animated movie - watch "Wallace & Gromit - The Curse of the Were-Rabbit" instead), "When a tree falls in the forest there are three stories; yours, mine, and the tree's." Ahhh, Nicky - one good line in 81 minutes ain't half bad.

Anyway, all of this Oprah publicity caused Augusten's publisher to panic so much that they removed the words "True Stories" from the front of the book and added the following author's note:

"Some of the events described happened as related; others were expanded and changed. Some of the individuals portrayed are composites of more than one person, and many names and identifying characteristics have been changed as well."

Good Christ - they might as well call it a novel and fire their attorneys. First off, did anyone NOT buy Frey's book because of the hubub? I suspect (and many bestseller lists would support this) that indeed, they simply INCREASED sales. Does anyone remember the old adage, "There's no such thing as bad publicity?" Come on, when the Pope said Catholics shouldn't read The Da Vinci Code you could hear Dan Brown yelling "Ka-Ching!" No - Such- Thing- As- Bad- Publicity. When Osama Bin Laden never turned up and instead the US charged into Iraq under false pretenses the entire world shrugged and said, "Well, the US Administration is lying, but....what are you gonna' do?" No- Such- Thing- As- Bad- Publicity.

But I digress (as usual). What I really want to tell you is how much I enjoyed Possible Side Effects. Burroughs can tell you a story about animal neglect, child abuse, deviancy, addiction, voyeurism, self-loathing, or mental illness and make you think, "What a charming story!" His memoirs are my version of the Chicken Soup for the Soul books. I guess that is a little schendenfreude, but I'm willing to admit it.

Truthfully, though, I think this ability merely speaks to Burroughs' skill as both a writer and an advertising executive. He can spin anything. (Think he'd like to take a shot at the current presidency? Spin it that is, a gay man can't get married let alone run for President. And don't even think about being governor of New Jersey!)

A real standout of the 20 or so vignettes is one titled "Mint Threshold." Burroughs is assigned to the Junior Mints account. The execs are trying to get folks past their "mint threshold" and to encourage the consumer to eat Junior Mints in situations that don't involve buying a movie ticket.(I guess this was before the Seinfeld episode...) Burroughs and his partner come up with a winning campaign in record time but it's back to the drawing board when the execs just don't get it. Pure amuse-mint.

But of course, the story that beats them all (for this book freak) is "Killing John Updike." A friend of Augusten's encourages him to buy first and signed editions of John Updike's books because he must be so old that he could die any day and then his books will be worth double and, therefore, are a great investment. Augusten buys in. His discovery that folks are selling his own first editions of Running with Scissors and others at collectible prices is humble and hilarious.

Part of my real love for this story comes from the fact that I recommend friends and clients buy first editions of Burroughs' first book (and only novel) Sellevision for its future value (and because it is funny as hell). I don't, however (I am sure he will be glad to hear), wish for his timely demise. I am WAY to anxious to hear more stories from his wabi-sabi (if you don't know, look it up) life.

I enjoyed Running With Scissors as much as anyone else who enjoys a read that makes your family look significantly less fucked up, so I decided that I'd give Possible Side Effects a shot. I found this book to be a lot less organized than Running With Scissors, and the essays themselves offered little to no payoff. Most of them end in the "and then I found $50." fashion that is consistent with Burroughs's essay writing. The difference here is that the essays in Running With Scissors were significantly more engaging, so I was able to overlook a lot of the anticlimactic conclusions. Some of the stories in Possible Side Effects invoke nothing more than a "so?" response that made it hard for me to get through the whole book. On the other hand, there are a few accounts worth reading hidden inside. I'd say read it if you're an Augusten Burroughs fan, but don't expect too much.

Sad, narcissistic, alcoholic stories. I can't remember why I wanted to read this book.

To me it seems like Burroughs's agent said "hey, man, enough time has gone by since we last published a book, you should do another one" and Burroughs complied with a series of essays that are...unremarkable, so far: little blog posts of short memoirs, to which there seems to be no theme and no purpose, just the certainty that the author has a big enough name and a big enough following that people will buy whatever he writes, whether or not it's interesting. So far, seven essays in, it is not.

Moving beyond the first group, we get into a series of essays that remind me of every addict I've ever known, and how people with addictions always think they are so charming and so funny and so entertaining, when really, they're just self-centered, and boring in that self-centered ness because they're just like every other addict trying to convince themselves they are charming, funny, and entertaining. Clearly there's a big market for "addiction lit", but I'm had enough of the genre in real life, and find little patience for it in literature.

The two stars is because the writing isn't terrible.

Burroughs is an excellent writer, and each book includes several exquisite lines, word pictures and turns of phrase that just take your breath away. At the same time, he remains the most vulgar of all the writers I read. In that, this book was somewhat different. I would not call it PG, but it is clean-er.

This collection of stories includes a few items that are hilarious, as usual. Between the hilarity and the wordsmithing, I can overlook the fact that there is truly nothing Burroughs will not write about. He describes his brother as an electronics genius with Aspergers. Maybe Augusten has it too--a writing Savant, with no internal editor.

But I know I will read the next one....