Augusten Burroughs gay experience
Not normally at the top of his 'to-do' list, Augusten Burroughs spoke openly about his gay experience to Andrew Georgiou
Anyone who has read Running With Scissors will know that you
didn't do that traditional high school thing because you stopped
attending and went on permanent wag at age 13? Yep, the last academic grade I did was grade four; I went sporadically for a bit, scatty days throughout
the seventh. I think I went to seventh then ninth and it just didn't work so, no.
So unlike so many of us, getting called a fag and being bullied in high school was a bullet you managed to dodge? I think I did dodge it. However I never questioned my sexual
orientation. It's something that's always been there from early on. I
was always interested in guys. It never worried me and I didn't think
about it. Because the life I was living at that time was so chaotic and
extraordinarily stressful, I just didn't think about my sexual
orientation. I had other things to think about. I was lucky that the
people I was with didn't think about it either.
How did you view other gay men and women? In the media, I
would get images that it was bad. I have never really felt part of the
gay community. I never sought out gay friends I get into trouble with
the gay press because I don't think they understand what I'm saying
when they ask: "Are you proud of being gay?" And I'm not any more proud
of being gay than I am of being right-handed. Because I personally
never had to struggle. It's not my personal achievement. I didn't do
anything.
I have heard a few people share that viewpoint. What about the achievements of others? I'm
proud of gay people, the generation before mine who wouldn't stand for
it; the drag queens from the Stonewall riots. I'm proud of the gay
filmmakers and writers and the bold lesbians who were so incredibly
smart and politically savvy and just fearless in ways that are
difficult for us to imagine now because we don't have those dangers.
There were gay people who continued to fight during the holocaust, who
continued to say "fuck you" while they were being put down like mad
cows.
And yet equality is still an issue today. Exactly. If you're
a democracy, any partnership available to any one segment must be
available to all. For many years, gay people have been taxed just the
same as any straight person and yet gay people are truly considered
second class. They cannot adopt in certain states. They cannot get
married. That is one day going to be a profoundly shameful piece of the
American past.
It's not unlike us looking back to a time where black people where not permitted to share swimming pools with white people. It's exactly and precisely the same thing. The difference is that it's
more obvious when it's racial. It is no different in any way.
Who buys Augusten Burroughs books? Queers, housewives, loners, nerds? Well my readership is not largely gay. It's probably 95 per cent
straight. Whether that's men or women. And that's just the way it is,
it's just who buys the most books.
Are there moments, despite your success, that you actually
question your ability as a writer, like Lara Flynn Boyle's character in
Happiness? (Laughs) I love Todd Solondz's work. I never doubt my
abilities and I never doubt my work. I'm good at getting my feelings
out on paper. You can read it and you'll feel what I felt. You can
testdrive my life. You want to know what it feels like to be a
crackhead alcoholic ad guy? Read Dry, you'll know. I'm good at
transferring what's inside.
Is your latest book A Wolf At The Table your best work yet? Wolf... is my best writing. It's the most well written and in some ways most beautifully written book. Dry is the most median; it's my favourite. And that's because it was
written in real time, when it happened. I could never write it now.
Running With Scissors is my least favourite because I had very little
to do with it. There's little of me in it. I'm not funny in the book.
I'm narrating the book and all I'm doing is pointing you in different
directions.
Augusten Burroughs' Wolf At The Table is out now through Pan Macmillan Press.
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