Running with Scissors, by Agusten Burroughs - I'm reading this book with my jaw dropping

[salvorhardin]

10. Turns out it's not so autobiographical

Here's some stuff I dug up when I read Running With Scissors a few years ago.

I wanted to know more about the real life family Augusten Burroughs grew up with so I did some googling around about the facts. He was sued by the family of Dr. Rodolph H. Turcotte, the real family he lived with growing up. Naturally they dispute a lot of the stories in the book, but interviews I've read with their neighbors and Augusten's brother say a lot of it was true and, according to his brother, that he even left out a lot of the wilder stuff.

Anyway, here's the archive of a website of one of Dr. Turcotte's followers who was writing her own biography of Dr. Turcotte. The website doesn't exist any more but the Wayback Machine has caught most of it.
http://web.archive.org/web/20080731095416/http://www.rhturcottemd.com/


And here's the obituary of the priest, the Rev. Joseph Quigley, that was so close to Dr. Turcotte and the family.
http://www.umass.edu/loop/talkingpoints/articles/18882.php

Here's an NPR interview with Augusten Burroughs' mother, Margaret Robinson and a link to her website. Augusten Burroughs was born Christopher Robinson.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6209286
http://www.margaretrobison.com/home.htm

There was a January 2007 Vanity Fair article by Ruth Buzzinger called Ruthless With Scissors that interviewed the Turcotte family, but it isn't available to me online.
http://goo.gl/WuFn

Finally, here's a blog post that gives some background on the lawsuit.
http://thecrapspot.blogspot.com/2006/04/storytelling-compromised-augusten.html

A picture of Dr. Turcotte

Augusten Burroughs' brother, John Elder Robinson, has also written a memoir but focused on growing up with Asperger's Syndrome.