Family settles with "Running with Scissors" author, publisher
By Rodrique Ngowi, Associated Press Writer | August 29, 2007

BOSTON --A family that claimed author Augusten Burroughs defamed them in his best-selling book "Running with Scissors" has settled a lawsuit against the author and his publisher, their attorney said Wednesday.

Burroughs and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, agree to call the work a "book" instead of "memoirs," in the author's note and to change the acknowledgments page in future editions to say that the Turcotte family's memories of events he describes "are different than my own," and expressing regret for "any unintentional harm" to them, according to Howard Cooper, an attorney for the family. He said financial terms of the settlement are confidential.

The family's lawsuit had sought $2 million in damages for defamation, invasion of privacy, and emotional distress. It alleged the book is largely fictional and written in a sensational way to increase its market appeal, and demanded a public retraction and an acknowledgment that "Running With Scissors" is a work of fiction.

An attorney for Burroughs declined comment, and St. Martin's Press did not immediately return a call for comment Wednesday.

Burroughs has said the book is only loosely based on his life.

According to a statement from the family's attorneys, Burroughs' new acknowledgments note will say that the Turcottes "are each fine, decent, and hardworking people," and that the book was not intended to hurt them.

The deal comes 10 months after the family said it had "mutually resolved" issues with Sony Pictures Entertainment to avoid a lawsuit over a movie based on the book.

"With this settlement, together with our settlement with Sony last year, we have achieved everything we set out to accomplish when we filed suit two years ago," the family said in the statement. "We have always maintained that the book is fictionalized and defamatory. This settlement is the most powerful vindication of those sentiments that we can imagine."

Burroughs, formerly Christopher Robison, lived with the Turcottes in Northampton as a teenager. According to the lawsuit, Burroughs' entire family was in therapy with Dr. Rodolph Turcotte, a psychiatrist. In 1980, Burroughs' mother asked Turcotte to become his legal guardian so he could attend Northampton schools. His mother still cared for him, but he had a room at the Turcottes' home.

Though the family in Burroughs' book is named "the Finches," the lawsuit claims they are easily identified as the Turcottes, and that Burroughs identified them in interviews.

Events in the book which the suit claimed were false include the Turcottes' condoning sexual affairs between children and adults, Turcotte's wife eating dog food and the family using an electroshock machine it stored under the stairs. The lawsuit claims the book also falsely portrays a home in unbelievable squalor, with a young child running around naked and defecating, and old turkey being stored in the showers.

Augusten Burroughs childhood was not your average childhood. Most of us don't have our insane mothers sending us packing to go live with their shrink. If that wasn't bad enough, the household members of the Finch family - blood and adopted - are also crazy. And definitely not tidy. Not in any sense of the word. . . .

This book was funny, sad, vulgar (mainly vulgar, actually). The one person I was actually liking was Hope until the cat incident. She never seemed quite right to me after that but I'm not sure why I thought initially she was semi-normal. Augusten has an affair with an older man when he is a young teenager. I had no problem with that being in this story but I ended up skipping some chapters about their sex life. (Did I mention the vulgar part of this book?) I didn't feel the graphic depictions of their relationship enhanced the book other than to emphasize just how messed up this whole thing really was.

There were some rather disgusting things in this book. I don't even know what to say about the scatalogical fortune telling chapter. Like, what???? Did I really read that? Did that really happen? Yet I kept reading. I really did need to know how this ended. I appreciated the epilogue.

Did some googling and saw the "Finch" family sued him for two million dollars. Hmmmm.

I can't say I would recommend this book to anyone but it's been on my to-read list for so long I'm actually glad I read it. (Except now I can't get some of these images out of my mind. Make it go away, please. . . .)

Someone recommended this book to me, said it was crazy funny. I'm almost ashamed to admit I read it. And to be honest, it takes a lot to shock or offend me. This story went beyond. Way beyond. I understand this is a memoir of Augusten's life. Which makes me sad. But nothing in this book is right. I realize that's the point. But the abuse, neglect, horrible behavior, the poor animals who suffered, the poor children who suffered...actually everyone in this book has suffered or caused pain, damage or death and as soon as I was done reading I needed a shower. Apparently this book was turned into a movie years ago. I can't even begin to understand why that choice was made. I wouldn't watch it. And according to information found online the author had success at his writing career, and I hope in his own life as well. Ugh. Although this book was well written, fast paced and LOL funny at times, I am sorry for all involved. Sad, disturbing, and just wrong.

Freedom is what we had. Nobody told us when to go to bed. Nobody told us to do our homework. Nobody told us we couldn't drink two six-packs of beer and then throw up in the Maytag.
So why did we feel so trapped? Why did I feel like I had no options in life when it seemed that options were the only thing I did have?

Wow, I'd forgotten how supremely fucked up this book is. (It's not for the weak of stomach. Some of scenes made me physically nauseous.) I first read it 2004ish. After reading Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's, by Burroughs' older brother, I wanted to revisit this one. (The portrayal of Robison in this one is interesting, but fairly in line with his account.)

While the writing isn't technically amazing (the leaps between present & past tense are jarring), the amount of detail is. There have been a lot of accusations that Burroughs embellished his memories (or even fabricated some scenes), but he quotes from one of his diaries from that time, indicating that he's drawing details from his teenage records. Also, from what I've read, their mother's memoir backs up his claim that adults in his life had full knowledge that from ages 12-14, he was "having an affair with" (being raped by) a man 20 years older than him. After that, whether or not someone ate dog food seems pretty trivial.

Add this to the "if you think your childhood was bad" list.

I love the memoir format with crazy/funny/freaky stories about people and their dysfunctional families. Burroughs never disappoints.

My brother's account of our childhood and life with the Finches

Bizarre and improbable, this is the sort of memoir that is entertaining and disorienting. I read this before the movie came out — naturally the book is better because it better embodies the weirdness, without stooping to cute wackiness. Movies do tend to sanitize everything for sensitive viewers.

Did all this turn out to be true? Too too bizarre.

I blame Charles Dickens for inventing the “trauma narrative as entertainment”.

I learned, along with the rest of my reading group, that running with scissors is preferable to reading this book.

I began this book Monday night, 3/24. I almost decided to put it down, thinking, "Oh, here we go. Another memoir with witty inclusions of past pop culture, preying on my nostalgia." But then, I couldn't get over Burroughs' memory of the details from the past, such as the ticking of a cooling hair dryer or how he felt when dressed just so. And then I thought, "This guy can't be for real. He's making up details to fill the space." But I decided to keep going after his description of the dump run with his father. Burroughs' desire for the abandoned coffee table, his description of how he would make it look nice and shiny (Windex! magazines!), and his childish wish to be flung from the car just made me keep going.

So far, so good.

***UPDATE***
3/27/08
This book has gone from weird to disturbing. I don't know what is more disturbing: the stories or Burroughs' resiliency. The idea that his mother inadvertently protected Burroughs' older brother by NOT seeking medical advice certainly seems true to me. No telling what would have happened to the brother had he been evaluated by a doctor as . . . different as Dr. Finch.

I like that we are introduced to an adult flaw in the pre-teen Augusten: his treatment of Bookman. It's disturbing, and his failure to see the danger in his behavior is alarming. His exposure to his parents' fighting and Dr. F's encouragement of expressions of anger to the extreme, seem to have desensitized Augusten to the power of anger and the effect words can have on people.

I wonder where this Bookman thing is going. I'll be glad when he's out of the story.

***UPDATE***
3/31/2008
Burroughs' unapologetic, naked memoir confounds my own sense of privacy. I don't understand how someone can be so open about his history. He's writing from outside, as if he is his own character. He's become his own patient.

I do envy Burroughs' need to write. I think really great writers feel as if they cannot or are not living unless they are writing. I've never felt that way.

I like the book, overall. I can't read Dry right now, however. I need a break. Imagine how Burroughs feels.

I hated this book. It was manipulative and trite, and, perhaps worst of all, considering it was a memoir, unbelievable. And I don't mean unbelievable as in, "wow, Augusten Burroughs sure has led a wacky life!" I mean unbelievable as in Augusten Burroughs sure did take some obvious liberties in telling his life story. He's also not a very talented writer, relying on hackneyed cliches and very obvious descriptions to convey his feelings. The whole thing was a manipulative sob story aimed at making you feel bad for poor lil' Augusten, and I simply wasn't buying it.

Loved it!!!!!

Incredibly written, detailed, disturbing and insightful. Mental illness is not romanticized or dramatized but shown as it is; painful to witness and experience, utterly inexplicable.