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No details, wit spared in Augusten Burroughs's 'You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas'
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Love or hate Christmas? Either way, "You Better Not Cry" will make you laugh out loud.
Just in time for the holidays, Augusten Burroughs, whose series of candid and self-deprecating memoirs has delighted and disturbed many readers, has released another autobiographic tome. "You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas" (St. Martin's Press) is a compilation of essays that recount the more dreadful experiences of an usually joyous occasion: Christmas.
As Burroughs describes his book on his Web site:
"Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. But for me, each Christmas has been worse than the one before. Perhaps this is punishment for getting Jesus and Santa all mixed up in my head as a kid. Or maybe, waking up hungover at the Wadorf [sic] Astoria next to a naked, old, fat French Santa just isnt [sic] as big a deal as I think. The funny thing is, I still love Christmas. I just sometimes wish there wasn't so much coal dust."
When asked in an interview with The Associated Press why he choose to reveal intimate details others would keep mum about, Burroughs replied:
"I've had a lot of very odd or unusual experiences but I'm not odd and I never wanted them, so I react the way I do, which is not unlike how you might. You just might be a little smarter and not get yourself in the situation in the first place."
Hailed for his humorous writing and his knack for finding comedy in the most absurd situations, Burroughs's volume of memoirs spans from his coming-of-age story growing up in a dysfunctional family and realizing he is gay, to his adulthood as a successful but troubled writer who struggles with alcohol addiction.
More info: Augusten Burroughs's brother, John Elder Robinson, has also written a critically acclaimed memoir about living with Asperger syndrome, which is an autism spectrum disorder: Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's (Crown).
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