Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs

Maybe I just haven’t been paying attention, but it seems like an entire cottage industry of Davis Sedaris imitators has sprung up overnight. It must be very chic right now to be a gay writer living in New York City, penning short bursts of memoir documenting your own sorry life in the hopes of making others laugh.

Earlier this year I read David Rakoff’s Don’t Get Too Comfortable, and yesterday I just finished listening to the audiobook of Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs. I have never read Burroughs' previous books, but I got this audiobook at BEA, and I figured it would be a fun, light way to get through a week of my commute. Now that I’ve finished, I’m not sure if the audiobook was the best way to experience this book because the writing is so simple and straightforward that my brain found itself wandering idly while Burroughs pronounced the words, ponderously spitting them one by one into the body of my car. I might have been less impatient had I read it.

Then again, maybe not. It was a good thing that I hadn’t read Burrough’s other books, because according to Bookmarks Magazine, “The loudest complaints are that the new book mostly retreads the best-selling Running with Scissors and Dry and that the quality of these 'new' tales varies tremendously.” Possible Side Effects recounts short anecdotes from Burroughs' childhood all the way through the last few years. I preferred hearing about his recent escapades because I’m not big into experiencing other peoples’ misery, which is why I generally avoid memoir in the first place.

In the end, though I think Sedaris’ wit is a bit sharper and his writing may be more refined, all of these Sedaris-esque authors—Burroughs, Rakoff, Savage—seem to be telling the same story. The details may be different but the execution and the underlying sentiments are too similar to dismiss.

So unless you love this particular combination of humor and misery and just can’t get enough, maybe reading only one of these writers is plenty. I choose Sedaris.

Possible Side Effects by Augusten Burroughs

tags: books book reviews memoir David Sedaris Augusten Burroughs