A Wolf at the Table
by Augusten Burroughs
St Martin's Press, HK$200
Augusten Burroughs had a fantastic childhood, not one to make the reader question the value and worth of his own, but fantastic in that many could only begin to imagine such a childhood. In his latest volume of memories, the author has decided to explore the first years of his life and, more importantly, to examine the relationship that existed between him and his father.
In A Wolf at the Table, Burroughs' father is presented as a cruel and unkind man and an inattentive, frightening and looming presence in his son's life. He yells often. He drinks too much. There is more than one occasion where Burroughs and his mother, poet Margaret Robison, leave the family's home in Massachusetts.
The book begins with two images. The first is a scene at night and Burroughs is being chased in a forest. It sounds like a nightmare, but before the reader is offered confirmation, the scene cuts and the reader is taken back to Burroughs as a toddler and his first memories of his mother's skirt. He was then 18 months old.
