With unconventional wit and a wonderfully weird way of looking at things, Augusten Burroughs chronicles his life on the edge after leaving his deeply eccentric foster family. Dry opens in Manhattan, where Augusten has established a life for himself as a high-paid advertising hotshot. But his past haunts him still as he tries to create a grown-up life. Dry is at times howlingly funny, devastatingly moving, and, in the end, uplifting. It further establishes Burroughs as one of the most original authors writing today.
Augusten Burroughs, whose first memoir, RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, revealed his Dickensian childhood, takes on his years as an alcoholic adman in this harrowing yet hilarious personal account. Burroughs tells the listener, "Advertising makes everything seem better than it actually is." He applies that basic tenet to his life, and the result is a series of bad decisions, brutality, Bloody Marys, and banality. Finally, he checks into a gay rehab clinic in Minnesota, as much to get sober as for the "possibility of good music and sex." Burroughs draws the listener into a depressing landscape of drunkenness, crack addiction, and the harsh realities of AIDS. His performance blends self-deprecating black humor with wisecracking confidence. His natural (or hard-learned) wit and charm keep the listener rooting for his success. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine
Library Journal (starred review) on Possible Side Effects...
An absolutely brilliant writer as well as a gifted narrator, Burroughs easily draws listeners into descriptions of the everyday.
About the Author
Augusten Burroughs is the New York Times bestselling author of Running with Scissors and Magical Thinking (both available as Sound Library® audiobooks), as well as Dry and Sellevision. He Lives in New York City and Massachusetts.
