A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs

I took a little detour from my NPR Summer Reading list, and read A Wolf at the Table by Augusten Burroughs. This was a very good book, although disturbing, and a departure from the "find-some-humor-in-the-bad-situation" that Augusten Burroughs usually writes. It is a memoir of his father, and the cruel mind-games and abuse his father heaped onto a little boy who wanted only love from him. It is quite graphic and upsetting for the most part, but definitely worth reading. The book held my interest, and evoked many emotions. It also gave me some food for thought about how my relationship with my own children could be improved, and what children are looking for from their parents.

At the beginning of the book I felt that maybe little Augusten whose point of view the book is written from had skewed bad memories of his Dad. As the book went on, I realized that from whatever point of view you took, this Father was just a Crazy Bastard and he didn't deserve to reproduce, let alone be called "Dad." My idealism told me that surely, at the end, the Father would go to AA, Become Sober, and Make Amends to his son and all would be better. Too bad this is a memoir of real-life and not Christy's World where everything turns out perfectly.