| Possible Side Effects |
This book is approved for consumption by those seeking pleasure, escape, amusement, enlightenment, or general distraction. This book is not approved to treat disorders such as Ebay addiction or incessant blind dating. In studies, some people reported inappropriate, convulsive laughter, a tingling sensation in the limbs, and sudden gasping. Fewer than 1% reported narcolepsy. Doll collectors may experience special sensitivity, as may discourteous drivers, candy company brand managers and Nicorette users. This book has been shown to be especially helpful to those with parents, grandparents, life partners and incontinent dogs. People with dry, cracked skin have responded well to this book, as have people with certain heart conditions. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading this book, until you know what effects it may have on you. This text is contraindicated in those suffering from certain psychiatric disorders, including-but not limited to-readers afflicted with Anhedonia, which is the inability to experience pleasure. Ask your doctor about Possible Side Effects. "(H)ilarious, wildly fanciful reminiscences...less spiky than Magical Thinking. It's also more inviting...he makes good, snarky company even with nothing serious in mind...Mr. Burroughs does get away with stunts that would sink more timid writers." "These essays aren't for the faint-hearted. You won't be hearing them on NPR alongside David Sedaris; Burroughs is rougher and raunchier. Life as a fifth-of-Dewars-a-day drinker isn't funny, exactly. But you will laugh, a lot, and out loud, sometimes cringing. Loneliness saturates the book like the smell of mints Burroughs buys with his booze, intending to mask his habit. His coworkers aren't fooled, and neither is the reader. You may see yourself here, with the sting such recognition entails." "His spare style and facility with double entendre are well suited to the biting comic essay form. He tackles everything from the tooth fairy to doll-collecting innkeepers to lesbian personal ads in this volume, and the result is fairly even and definitely hard to put down once you begin...Burroughs' greatest strengths as a memoirist are his refusal to fit into one easy box (gay man, alcoholic, ad man, New Yorker, hypochondriac, compulsive slob) and his ability to elevate reader curiosity using tone and plain observations...he somehow manages to lure you in time after time with his unique way of describing things that could have happened to anyone, but didn't -- at least not quite this way." "From the author of the best sellers "Running With Scissors" and "Magical Thinking" comes another set of memoir-style essays capturing Burroughs' unique and humorous perspective on life's twists and turns...Burroughs comically documents his diverse experiences, from childhood and adulthood, using aspects of his character - his social isolation, slovenliness and imagination, to name just a few - to plump the material." "At this point, labeling Augusten Burroughs a memoirist is a bit of an understatement...Burroughs has excavated every crevice of his personal life for material. So maybe calling him a miner is more accurate. Fortunately, his work is much more environmentally friendly. More artful and funnier, too. And unlike James Frey, whose Oprah-approved "memoir" A Million Little Pieces demonstrated society's willingness to suspend suspicion of too-conveniently recalled tales in order to rubberneck someone else's misery, Burroughs' work invites us to ogle the mundane. The effect is less icky and more powerful...Burroughs is funny - when he's not breaking your heart...Burroughs' breezy, clear-cut writing style is perfectly matched to his subject matter: prose-y when necessary but highly conversational, fluid and frank...something wonderful and new to savour." "It's amazing that Burroughs still has any stories left untold. Yet here he is with 26 new tales...'The Forecast For Sommer' is a gut-wrenching ode to a suicidal friend of his mother's, while 'The Georgia Thumper' tackles his hatred toward his cruel maternal grandmother. Those two stories alone are worth the book's price." "Augusten Burroughs returns with Possible Side Effects, another lewd but sophisticated collection of intimately personal essays. Brave, dark, and screamingly funny, this book is so engaging it'll leave you craving more." "His ruminations on everything from Nicorette gum, the BBC, pornography and his messed-up childhood with a delusional manic-depressive mother read like a darker, hipper David Sedaris...a funny, sharp and totally enjoyable read." "The rehab chronicler who wasn't bitch-slapped by Oprah offers biting new observations on life." "Oh, that boy is trouble. Augusten Burroughs offers more tales of his dysfunctional family and his ill-fated forays into polite society in his outrageously funny new collection of essays, Possible Side Effects... tart, smart, and wicked fun." "Delightful . . . This book is yet another testament to his wild imagination and could keep the readers up at night as well as help the author gain a whole new legion of fans . . . Sure to enthrall . . . A memorable book; highly recommended." "Autobiographical essays and sketches that consistently entertain . . . You can almost see the child from a disturbed home dancing frantically about in these pages, doing anything to ward off the darkness. It brings a grimace with the laughter . . . Meaningful and heartfelt." "He's learned to make love, not Dewar's . . . Edgy at the edges but soft in the center, Possible Side Effects connects to neurotic midlifers, slightly off-kilter, kidless, dog-doting and solitary souls." "Memorable and well worth reading . . . His unique perspective [is] fashioned from a lifetime of bad influences, inner torment and a salad bowl of insecurities. And what is truly amazing: He can find the humor in it." "Burroughs' currency is self-loathing and outrageousness . . . In just five years, he's emerged as the memoir's populist misanthrope gross-out man, a coarser, cruder David Sedaris for the non-New Yorker set. Like Sedaris, he is gay, though that matters less than the fact that he is nasty . . . Burroughs' twisted nature has an immediate appeal . . . He's the mildly demented distant relative whose junk-food binges, spiteful fantasies and kleptomaniac tendencies appeal to our suppressed dark side while allowing us to maintain a sense of superiority. And he deadpans like a champion . . . Some sketches mine the indignities of his stint in advertising; others turn to fresh material of ever-so-slightly-ruffled domestic bliss with his saintly boyfriend, Dennis . . . Another entry, about a burn-scarred dermatologist who offers 10-year-old Burroughs the tenderness his narcissistic mother can't, is so genuine and heartbreaking that you slow yourself to savor it." "The primary reason for reading the essays in Possible Side Effects is to enjoy the sound of his rueful, funny, faintly sulky voice . . . This is a book by someone who understands the frailty and absurdity of the human condition." "Unflinchingly, he gouges himself (literally and figuratively), bleeds, gets it on paper - often without a neat resolution or the genre's obligatory epiphany - and then makes you laugh. Now that's genius." |
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