Augusten Burroughs shaken — and awed — by sharp "Scissors"

During his unhappy, wildly erratic childhood, described in his best-selling memoir "Running with Scissors," Augusten Burroughs would seek sanctuary at the movies. He'd go to the cinema instead of school, finding respite from his bizarre surrogate family and from missing his mentally ill, absent mother.

Now, at 41, his life has come full circle: "Running with Scissors" is a movie, starring Annette Bening and opening in Seattle today at several theaters. And Burroughs says he's pleased with the end result, though it wasn't always easy to sit through.

In Seattle last week, he spoke about the experience of watching the film. "It actually was upsetting," he said. "I didn't expect it to be, because I lived it. I wrote the book, and I've talked about the book so much. I didn't see how it would really become fresh to me again. ... It really took me off guard, all the memories, all the emotions of that period in my life, so scared by the instability."

An impressive production

But he has high praise for writer/director Ryan Murphy (creator of TV's "Nip/Tuck"), calling the film "a really, really fine movie." And he was awed by Bening's performance, citing its realism. "So often, manic depression or psychosis, mental illness, is portrayed in Hollywood with great histrionics, over-the-top screaming and throwing plates," he said. "Real mental illness ... it's all in the eyes, you look at that person's eyes and they are not there behind those eyes. It's a very scary thing, and that's what Annette understood and accomplished."

Describing Bening as "very, very smart," he explained the actress' impressive preparation and research. "She came to the table with a great knowledge of psychology, mental illness, medication. She was very much like, 'I can do this five ways: I can do [a scene] with one Valium, or I can do it with a Valium and a drink, or I can do it with two Valiums and two drinks. ... It was surreal. She's extraordinarily technical in that sense, and yet you don't see any of that, it's all invisible."

The story behind the film

Published in 2002, "Running with Scissors" focuses on Burroughs' early teenage years in a Massachusetts college town. As his parents' marriage was breaking up (his alcoholic father would soon abandon the family), his mother Deirdre began therapy with the unconventional Dr. Finch. (Names in the book have been changed.) Soon, addicted to pills, she sent her son to live with the Finches in their ramshackle, junk-filled home. Life was strange there, Burroughs writes: Dishes weren't washed, dead cats were exhumed, patients wandered in and out.

Augusten drifted through a bizarre youth, rarely attending school, enduring longtime sexual abuse from one of Dr. Finch's patients, which began when he was 13. His mother would occasionally appear, then disappear again. At 17, he headed for New York City alone, determined to begin a different life.

Burroughs began writing about his childhood in his 30s, after struggling with severe alcoholism. For material, he relied both on memory and on his extensive journals from his teen years. "I wrote in five-subject college notebooks, for the most part," he said. "After I left [the Finches], I dragged them around with me. ... I moved around from Chicago, Boston, western Massachusetts, San Francisco, New York, and yet I never got rid of them. It came in very handy, it was wonderful to have. But there's something about that childhood that I could never forget."

The hard truth

He acknowledges that "every single word everybody says verbatim" may not be precisely accurate; it's impossible to remember the exact wording of decades-old conversations. "But I do my best," he said. Of the James Frey scandal (in which the author of "A Million Little Pieces" eventually admitted to fabricating some of his memoir), Burroughs said that "every nonfiction writer certainly felt soiled by that. ... I feel like most people who approach a memoir are going to do their best to make it accurate. You have to live with it — it's your book, and your name is on it for the rest of your life. It stands as your testimony, of what happened to you."

(Burroughs is not able to comment publicly on the lawsuit filed by the real-life Northampton, Mass., family with whom he lived, who have sued him for defamation, invasion of privacy, fraud and emotional distress. Among other charges, the lawsuit alleges that the book contains distortions and fabrications, according to the Boston Globe. The suit, filed in 2005 — three years after the book's publication — has not yet come to trial. Sony Pictures reached a settlement with the family this month, averting a second lawsuit over the movie; the studio likewise is not commenting.)

A "Running" update

Since "Running with Scissors," Burroughs has completed the memoir "Dry" and the essay collections "Magical Thinking: True Stories" and "Possible Side Effects." And he's found stability in his personal life, living with longtime partner Dennis Pilsits and their two French bulldogs. He's close to his brother and nephew, but remains estranged from his mother. "I dislike her," he said. "I mean, I love her, as a primal mom thing, but I don't like her. We don't have at all the same moral foundation."

But Burroughs did eventually regain contact with his father, spending much time with him before his death a year and a half ago. "I wanted to try to understand the man who could allow that to happen, who could vanish from my life," said Burroughs. He's now working on a memoir about his relationship with his father. "When he died, the surprise for all of us what that he had kept four journals, for four years in the '70s, page-a-day journals. They're not filled with much emotion, but they're very good documents of what happened. They're very interesting, and I'm going to use them in the book."

Burroughs said the book about his father will probably be his last memoir. "I love fiction," he said. "I've written three novels. You'd never think the same writer wrote them; they're completely different. The way I write is, I don't outline, so I don't know what's going to happen from one page to the next." He smiled. "It's like a movie — it's exciting."

Moira Macdonald: 206-464-2725 or mmacdonald@seattletimes.com