Lawsuit targets 'Scissors' memoir

[dissention]

Anyone read this crappy book (or any of his other "memoirs")? People around here could have told you this was eventual as soon as it was published. I'm quite surprised it took them so long to sue. What a mess.

http://www.boston.com/ae/books/artic...issors_memoir/

Lawsuit targets 'Scissors' memoir
By David Mehegan, Globe Staff

Three years after it was published, a best-selling memoir about a Northampton psychiatrist and his family has drawn a lawsuit alleging defamation, emotional distress, fraud, and invasion of privacy.

Using made-up names in his 2002 book ''Running With Scissors," Northampton author Augusten Burroughs described living several years with a psychiatrist, ''Dr. Finch," and his crazy family in the late 1970s. ''Dr. Finch" was given custody of Burroughs, who was then about 9, by his troubled mother. A movie version of ''Running With Scissors" -- directed by ''Nip/Tuck" creator Ryan Murphy and starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Annette Bening, Alec Baldwin, and Vanessa Redgrave -- is due out next year.

Six members of the Turcotte family, whose patriarch was Dr. Rodolph H. Turcotte, who died in 2000, are suing Burroughs, his agent, and publisher St. Martin's Press in Middlesex Superior Court. The suit demands a public retraction of the book and a public statement that it is fiction and not a memoir. The suit also asks that the publisher be enjoined from continued publication and distribution of the book.

The suit alleges that even with the name change, the ''Finches" were easily recognizable as the Turcottes. It also contends that Burroughs ''fabricated events that never happened and manufactured conversations that never occurred" in order to ''knowingly cause harm and humiliation to the Turcotte family." The complaint also says Burroughs identified the Turcottes in media appearances, including an interview in People magazine, and that he presented them as ''an unhygienic, foul, and mentally unstable cult engaged in bizarre and at times criminal activity."

Howard M. Cooper of Boston, the Turcotte family's lawyer, said the prospect of the film, now in production, precipitated the complaint. ''With the forthcoming movie," he said, ''the family is living in fear that there will be utter devastation to their reputations, and the invasion of their privacy will be complete." The suit does not attempt to block the release of the movie from TriStar Pictures.

In the story, the ''Finch" psychiatrist and family members are bizarre to varying degrees. The mother eats dog food, while a pet cat is tortured, killed, buried, and dug up again. A pedophile, who molests the boy, lives in a shed out back. The psychiatrist, described as a Santa Claus look-alike, dispenses pills recklessly and at one point helps the boy fake suicide with alcohol and Valium to avoid going to school. Despite the elapsed decades, much of the action is described in fine detail, including gestures and dialogue.

Reached yesterday by telephone, Burroughs said of the complaint, ''I can't comment at all." Gregg Sullivan, associate director of publicity for St. Martin's Press, said, ''We don't comment on matters under litigation."

[littlecricket2]

I've never read the book, although it was on my list of books I eventually wanted to read since I've enjoyed some memoirs I've read in the past, and since--get this--I'm a high school teacher, and I noticed this past year that many of the students were reading it--perhaps as required reading in one of their English classes!

I remember seeing one girl carrying the book out of a classroom (she wasn't my student), and I asked her how the book was. She said it was sort of weird, but that it "makes you feel very blessed." (I guess because the author supposedly had it so rough.)

I feel bad for this family. I wonder how much of it was based in truth and how much of it was completely fabricated?

[hayley]

Diss, you think the book is crappy? It's one of my favorites. I could care less if it's fact or fiction. I love Augusten. "Sellevision," "Dry," and "Magical Thinking" are all awesome.

"Running With Scissors" is worth it alone for the anecdote about Dr. Finch deciding you could divine the future by analyzing the family's bowel movements and moving them out into the sun onto a picnic table in the backyard to dry, for posterity.

[dissention]

Originally Posted by hayley

Diss, you think the book is crappy? It's one of my favorites. I could care less if it's fact or fiction. I love Augusten. "Sellevision," "Dry," and "Magical Thinking" are all awesome.

"Running With Scissors" is worth it alone for the anecdote about Dr. Finch deciding you could divine the future by analyzing the family's bowel movements and moving them out into the sun onto a picnic table in the backyard to dry, for posterity.

Nah, I didn't care for it at all. I've met Augusten Burroughs and found him to be quite uppity, plus it's a pretty well known fact around here that he made up 99% of it. Probably clouded my judgement of it when I checked it out of the library.

I do kind of want to see the movie, though, to see Annette Bening and Vanessa Redgrave. Julianne Moore was supposed to play his mother, but ended up dropping out. I wasn't surprised that they didn't film it in Northampton because the Turcotte family still lives around there and Dr. Turcotte was very well known; it would have created quite a stir.

[hayley]

Originally Posted by dissention

Nah, I didn't care for it at all. I've met Augusten Burroughs and found him to be quite uppity, plus it's a pretty well known fact around here that he made up 99% of it. Probably clouded my judgement of it when I checked it out of the library.

I do kind of want to see the movie, though, to see Annette Bening and Vanessa Redgrave. Julianne Moore was supposed to play his mother, but ended up dropping out. I wasn't surprised that they didn't film it in Northampton because the Turcotte family still lives around there and Dr. Turcotte was very well known; it would have created quite a stir.

I like Augusten, I've definitely preferred his books over David Sedaris', for one. Maybe it's just sentimental. I have a hazy memory of finishing "Dry" while sitting in a bar, getting drunk after a meeting with my recovery counselor. Oooops.

The movie should be interesting. I love that Brian Cox is playing Finch, but I was really disappointed with Gwyneth Paltrow as Hope. Oh well.

[David]

Originally Posted by hayley

I like Augusten, I've definitely preferred his books over David Sedaris', for one. Maybe it's just sentimental. I have a hazy memory of finishing "Dry" while sitting in a bar, getting drunk after a meeting with my recovery counselor. Oooops.

Hayley, did you ever see Fritz Lang's "The Blue Gardenia" with Anne Baxter & Ann Southern?

[sparky]

I like his books, though at times I felt he was a bit of a Sedaris poser. But then again, Sedaris' last book didn't make me laugh ONCE, so I was thinking Burroughs was the new Sedaris - I laughed my ass off at a lot of his stuff. It is pretty foul if he identified the family in public. That, he should never have done. He should know better.
As for his personality, I heard an interview with him on the radio and must agree with Diss - he sounded like an uptight, precious little bitch of a man. Quite the opposite of Sedaris, who is charming, self effacing, and utterly adorable in interviews. I drop everything whenever I hear him being interviewed. Praying he will do his Billie Holiday impersonation.

[hayley]

Originally Posted by David

Hayley, did you ever see Fritz Lang's "The Blue Gardenia" with Anne Baxter & Ann Southern?

Sure. It's actually in my collection. I love how smarmy Raymond Burr is in it.

Don't worry. I wasn't drinking Polynesian Pearl Divers. I can't imagine there will be a morning after for me anytime soon where I'm not sure whether or not I've killed a dude.

[David]

Originally Posted by hayley

Sure. It's actually in my collection. I love how smarmy Raymond Burr is in it.

Don't worry. I wasn't drinking Polynesian Pearl Divers. I can't imagine there will be a morning after for me anytime soon where I'm not sure whether or not I've killed a dude.

Well, did you ever see Fritz Lang's "Testament of Dr. Mabuse"?

[hayley]

Originally Posted by David

Well, did you ever see Fritz Lang's "Testament of Dr. Mabuse"?

Nope. Should I add it to my queue?

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by David

Well, did you ever see Fritz Lang's "Testament of Dr. Mabuse"?

Yes and it was disturbing in its murderous vibe.

I also think Lang is one of the greatest ever - Metropolis is my fav., esp. the cadence of the workers - There can be no understanding between the hands and the brain unless the heart acts as mediator.

I also think Madonna was an a$$ for even trying to spin off of it and O'Neill's "The Hairy Ape."

I would have LOVED for him to have worked with Swanson as he and Griffith are just about two of the only greats she did not work with.