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    A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
    A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
    A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
    Audiobook9 hours

    A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

    Written by Augusten Burroughs

    Narrated by Augusten Burroughs

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Nominated for the 2009 Audiobook of the Year

    "As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body. He buried it and told me I must never tell. It was the only thing we'd ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell. But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me. And sometimes…I wasn't altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream?"

    When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark. As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl. Something dark and secretive that could not be named.

    Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten's childhood was over. The kind of father he wanted didn't exist for him. This father was distant, aloof, uninterested…

    And then the "games" began.

    With A Wolf at the Table, Augusten Burroughs makes a quantum leap into untapped emotional terrain: the radical pendulum swing between love and hate, the unspeakably terrifying relationship between father and son. Told with scorching honesty and penetrating insight, it is a story for anyone who has ever longed for unconditional love from a parent. Though harrowing and brutal, A Wolf at the Table will ultimately leave you buoyed with the profound joy of simply being alive. It's a memoir of stunning psychological cruelty and the redemptive power of hope.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Audio
    Release dateApr 29, 2008
    ISBN9781427204264
    A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father
    Author

    Augusten Burroughs

    Augusten Burroughs is the author of Running with Scissors, Dry, Magical Thinking: True Stories, Possible Side Effects, A Wolf at the Table and You Better Not Cry. He is also the author of the novel Sellevision, which has been optioned for film. The film version of Running with Scissors, directed by Ryan Murphy and produced by Brad Pitt, was released in October 2006 and starred Joseph Cross, Brian Cox, Annette Bening (nominated for a Golden Globe for her role), Alec Baldwin and Evan Rachel Wood. Augusten's writing has appeared in numerous magazines and newspapers around the world including The New York Times and New York Magazine. In 2005 Entertainment Weekly named him one of "The 25 Funniest People in America." He resides in New York City and Western Massachusetts.

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    Reviews for A Wolf at the Table

    3.5/5

    554 ratings42 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Real and raw. Might be too intense for the plain folks.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 3/5
      Augusten Burroughs yet again doesn't disappoint me and this isn't even one of his better reads. He is funniest and most poignant pointing out life's folly's through his own bizarre childhood and newly sober adulthood. But in Wolf, Burrough's is not the focus. His father is. This Wolf is a professor who is mentally absent when sober and frighteningly present while drunk. He is not a character to evoke sympathy, humor, or even base understanding. I believe this is why Wolf is the weakest (which is still better than most people's best) of Burrough's memoirs. Fortunately, he maintains the reader's interest throughout by relying on his strengths as a writer and keen observer. Strongly recommended for Augusten fans, but if you are new to him, save Wolf for after his classic: Running with Scissors. Then go out and buy all the rest of work and read voraciously.
    • 4/5
      A chilling tale about the author's experience growing up in the house of an abusive father. Though rarely physically abused, young Augusten lived a childhood full of emotional neglect and frequent fear of physical harm - even death. This story will crawl inside of you.
    • 1/5
      Rubbish. Badly written, hilariously over the top and nakedly self-serving memoir about the author's terrible father. The writing is so shameless and ludicrous that you quickly find yourself doubting the whole story and feeling sympathy for the monstrous father. This is my first shot at one of Augusten Burroughs' books (an op-shop pick up for $1) and it'll be my last.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed this...a bit self-indulgent (what memoir isn't?) and could have used a little more fleshing-out, or even unfounded speculation on the father character, but still good.
    • 5/5
      His raw honesty is a rarity. Love all of his books. My favourite author.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed this book in places though not as much as some of his previous work. As always an easy and enjoyable read though I think I found the child like stories a little dull after a while. Burrough's construction of the character of his father was definitely the high point of the novel for me.
    • 2/5
      An in-depth look at Augusten Burroughs' relationship with his father, from childhood to his teenage years. It's not quite as disturbing as Running With Scissors, but of course much darker than his humorous essay collections. It's well-written, but I didn't find it especially engaging.
    • 4/5
      This is definitely not his best one, but it was still a good read. There isn't really much to say, it's a memoir.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed Burroughs previous works. This is not as light-hearted as his other books, but just as compelling and horrific. This is a dark book -- if you haven't read his book "Running with Scissors", then read that first and then this one. They are essentially book-ends about his years as a child growing up, not just about his life, but his evolution as a writer as well.
    • 4/5
      Enjoyed this book in places though not as much as some of his previous work. As always an easy and enjoyable read though I think I found the child like stories a little dull after a while. Burrough's construction of the character of his father was definitely the high point of the novel for me.
    • 4/5
      Read this in just under 24 hours, was not sure what to expect and must say I'm a bit surprised. Other reviewers have commented on Burroughs wit etc, this one has a much darker tone to it. It is tales of Augusten growing up with and without his father. His father through the eyes of young Augusten is an old arthritic alcoholic with knee problems and it seems some mental problems as well. He tells of raging fights between his parents when they are drunk and he goes and hides in his room. Other times he has "dreams" of a man, possibly his father, chasing him through the woods at night with a flashlight. How when Augusten was very young he would run up to his father and want a hug each night as he got home only to be rebuffed. His father shouting for him to go away and it was his alone time. The author gives his youthful self a very adult attitude which I'm sure would not have been the case but we need to allow him some artistic license. What child of 8-9 would keep a notebook on how many times his father rebuffed him for wanting a hug or to sit in his lap as opposed to the times he's allowed to do so. Mostly of the book is about Augusten's very early years. We do get some looks into their adult relationship. Calls made once a week to his dad, one of which is really disturbing. Finally leading up to the death of his father, with the lack of emotion being the most disturbing.
    • 4/5
      Possibly a memoir as stated in subtitle and by library classification, BUT I feel it was heavily fictionalized to bring out more strongly feelings of a boy of wanting acceptance from a cold and psychopathic father, and not getting it. With the neglect of the part of the father and death of a beloved pet, the boy's feelings turn to a love/hate/fear relationship. The supposed memories of the boy as an infant eating in his high chair and learning to walk I felt were absolutely false. Two words to describe the whole book--overwrought and histrionic. The more young Augusten pleads in words and actions for his father to love him, the more his father pushes him away. A good psychological study of a dysfunctional family. At the end though, we are left with a note of hope: with Dad passed on, Augusten knows he himself controls the rest of his life. I wouldn't say I LOVED this book, but the writing style was captivating.
    • 4/5
      Warning, if you've ever dealt with abuse of any kind, you may feel slightly uncomfortable reading this book, and may feel somewhat introspective as well.
    • 5/5
      Why did I read this in one day? I'm still not sure. The book is poignant, incredibly painful, terrifying, and yet, I couldn't put it down. It was so real, so vivid, and so exquisite.

      It's been a while since I read Dry, so I didn't remember the humor that might have offset this. Humor might have been very welcome, but at the same time, I think it would have broken the mood. It needed to be like this, to have the full impact.

      Incredibly powerful, painful, and exhilarating all at once.
    • 5/5
      As it seems, it has taken Augusten half a lifetime to decipher the reasoning behind his father's strange head games, split personality and emotionless existence. Daily psychological abuse as a child turns him into an adult who daily questions himself. It only makes sense. But that leaves Augusten with the difficulty of separating himself from his father. Questions, thoughts and concerns about his father consume him, even in his thirties, as he tries to carry on like a normal person working in the city. He describes in great detail his mother's steady mental decline through the years. But most of all, he really wants to know what is *wrong* with his father. He wants to know *why he wears two masks*. And he continues to struggle with the question of *how much of my father is in me?**In my bedroom last night I thought I heard him laughing downstairs in the basement. It was a soft laugh, more of a throaty chuckle. And then he stopped and I heard nothing. I didn't investigate. I knew he wasn't laughing because of something funny. It was basement laughter. And there was something crazy about it.*I don't think this story will be leaving my mind any time soon. Amazing.(less)Sep 08, 20
    • 3/5
      I typically really like Augusten Burroughs' writing, esp. the stories leading up to his adulthood and shortly thereafter. But as many other readers have noted, this one seemed to fall somewhat short. I admit that I was fairly anxious to read this one, as Burroughs' previous stories have only very briefly mentioned his father, so I was curious to learn more about the man. Throughout most of the book, I kept thinking to myself that his father really wasn't all that horrible, or at least he didn't seem to be quite as bad as his son kept alluding to. Yes, he had some anger and some odd peculiarities, and very likely some mental instability. But sadly, too many children seem to grow up in a world like this today, and maybe I'm just numbed to that fact, to the point where I didn't find Augusten's experiences all that remarkable. Ultimately, what Augusten wants the reader to take from this memoir is that he never really had a close relationship with his dad. I have no doubt that this affected Augusten's development into an adult, but having read most of his other memoirs, I'd have to say there were also a lot of other factors involved in his highly dysfunctional family. He makes his mother sound like the good guy in this one, but as I recall, she wasn't such a positive role model in Running With Scissors.This is a dark, somewhat disturbing memoir, but in a different way than in Augusten's previous works. The writing was still quite good, but I don't think he was quite at his best in this one, perhaps because of the more serious tone.
    • 5/5
      This is an extremely well written piece of literature. It is however, psychologically, very disturbing. I would not recommend this to anyone looking for an uplifting, enjoyable read. It is like descending into Dante's hell.
    • 3/5
      The book starts with a disturbing scene, “If my father caught me he would cut my neck…” The book describes a childhood- with looming distances of abuse and neglect separating the members of a highly dysfunctional family. The author is the brother of another author. (Look Me in the Eye)
    • 4/5
      Having studied Augusten's Running With Scissors in a class, I grabbed this book from my local book shop when I saw it. It's centred more on his younger years and delivers quite a heartbreaking insight to his lonely life. He was such a confused, lonely child who never received his right to a stable and happy home, definitely something that I personally can now see that I could take for granted.My copy has a picture of an 8-10 year old Augusten on it, and there is so much sadness in his eyes its crazy. To read his story and to know exactly why that sadness is there make it that much more of a memorable read.Rec'd!
    • 4/5
      Definitely more dark than his other works. I am left with questioning why his mother is protrayed as quite loving in this book while in Running with Scissors she is unloving and crazier . . .?
    • 3/5
      This is a prequel to the best-selling Running with Scissors, which I have not read. Told mostly from the point of view of Burroughs as a young boy, it is often quite sad and disturbing, but an oddly easy read, with a soupçon of redemption at the end. Burroughs presents his father as emotionally neglectful, violent and alcoholic, and his mother as not up to the task of protecting herself or her children.Because of all the media coverage of Burroughs' veracity issues, I was constantly second-guessing the truthfulness of the narrative as I read. Yet, unlike Jeanette Walls' The Glass Castle, my BS meter did not often go off. Burroughs' mother and brother have their own memoirs, and I'm not inclined to adjudicate their respective cases, but this book felt true to me.Warning: two depictions of animal abuse. This kind of stuff is usually a deal-breaker for me, but I had to stick with the book because it's for my library book club.
    • 3/5
      I liked this book a lot. My only qualm is that, yet another book has a book jacket that sucks you in, and then barely, it ever, deals with what's on the jacket. I wanted to know about the murder/dream of the woods. Figures it doesn't deliver.
    • 5/5
      Reading Augusten Burroughs could become habit-forming. A WOLF AT THE TABLE is the second of his books I've read this week. This one is certainly much darker than RUNNING WITH SCISSORS, largely without the hilarity and humor that marked that book. It's easy to see why when one begins to understand the tragedy of the relationship - or lack of one - between Burroughs and his father, John Robison, who was an alcoholic and dangerously depressed and disturbed. And yet his father was able to function for many years as a philosophy prof at UM-Amherst, where he wore "a mask" of normality, as Burroughs came to understand many years later. There is little here about Burroughs later life and his gay assignations and relationships - a conscious decision on the author's part, I'm sure. Because this book was meant to be all about his father - his dark silent drinking, his sudden inexplicable rages, his occasional brutality and violence toward his wife and sons. But mostly I think Burroughs was simply trying to figure it all out, perhaps to expiate the demons and understand the recurring nightmares that haunted him for decades after he left home. Judging from the structure of the book, it seems he wrote most of the book while his father was still living, but waited to finish and published it only after his father's death.This is a sad story, perhaps even a tragic one. But I think it's a better one that RwS, written with an intense and yearning honesty, resulting I think in a kind of redemptive self-discovery for Burroughs. The last couple of chapters dealing with his father's demise and its aftermath are wrenching enough to break your heart. I hope this book did rid Burroughs of his doubts, demons and nightmares. No one deserves a childhood like the one he endured.
    • 3/5
      Augusten Burroughs yet again doesn't disappoint me and this isn't even one of his better reads. He is funniest and most poignant pointing out life's folly's through his own bizarre childhood and newly sober adulthood. But in Wolf, Burrough's is not the focus. His father is. This Wolf is a professor who is mentally absent when sober and frighteningly present while drunk. He is not a character to evoke sympathy, humor, or even base understanding. I believe this is why Wolf is the weakest (which is still better than most people's best) of Burrough's memoirs. Fortunately, he maintains the reader's interest throughout by relying on his strengths as a writer and keen observer. Strongly recommended for Augusten fans, but if you are new to him, save Wolf for after his classic: Running with Scissors. Then go out and buy all the rest of work and read voraciously.
    • 3/5
      I usually love Augusten Burroughs, but I found that this book was lacking in something. I bought it recently and started reading it, and was on the third or fourth chapter before realizing that it all sounded familiar and I had read it before. I find it less gripping and interesting than his usual novels, with nothing standing out so much, and apparently, easily forgettable. Some parts are hard to believe, especially those with him remembering parts of his very very early childhood. I feel for young Augusten, but I think his memoirs about his later life are much more interesting. Still, he is a good writer, and even his worst is still very good in my personal opinion.
    • 3/5
      **spoiler alert** Augusten Burroughs had a twisted, heartless father. He was sadistic and liked to play little 'games' with his son and wife. I found myself completely in awe of Augusten. He was such a sensitive, kind, mature little boy. Seriously. I'm sure his mother was so proud of him, I know I would be if I had such a beautiful kid.My heart brooke when Augusten returned home only to found his little friend, the hamster Ernie, dead because his father didn't take care of it like he was supposed to. And it was horrific how his father was able to transform Augusten's faithful, nice dog into a beast in a matter of days.
    • 3/5
      This was a good book . . . HOWEVER, if you are a first-time reader of Burroughs, I would not suggest it as the one to start with. Try DRY or RUNNING WITH SCISSORS first. It will give you an insight as to who Burroughs is and his background; then try this book. It's good and revealing of the author, but very dark (probably theraputic for him), but to be honest, if I had started with this book, I wouldn't have read any others. Don't make that mistake - he's too bright of an author to be dismissed. Give POSSIBLE SIDE EFFECTS a spin first.
    • 3/5
      Synopsis: Another memoir by the author, this time focusing on his early childhood relationship with his father. The only thing Augusten craves from his father is attention and love. He only gets a cold, hatred of a response back. Augusten knows that there is something wrong with his alcoholic father, and not just the chilling smile that his father gives him late at night. As Augusten grows older, his relationship with his father gets scarier and more distant.This is another memoir where the reader is left thinking where was DHHS and how could these people have children? The author is insightful, and appears to be grounded despite what he went through growing up. I liked this book better than Possible Side Effects and I still need to read Running with Scissors. It was interesting to see how his interpretation of their life differs from his older brother's view in Look Me in the Eyes, which I read last year.
    • 2/5
      Summary from Follett--"Presents a memoir of Augusten Burroughs' relationship with his father, which consisted of abuse, aloofness and betrayal."Intense book, but doesn't come across as disturbing as Running With Scissors. It is a good portrayal of how a child can be abused even when it is not physically. The emotional toll on Augusten of having a father who never showed him any love and terrified his mother and Augusten is devastating. Would be a great book to discuss in a psychology/sociology class.