Augusten Burroughs (pictured here with fellow Melbourne Writers Festival keynote speaker Germaine Greer) put on a spirited performance Friday night in the Main Hall of Melbourne Town Hall. His most recent memoir -- A Wolf at the Table -- was for me an occasionally awkward account of having what the author describes as a homicidal psychopath for a father. Not exactly fodder for a rollicking Friday night in the heart of Melbourne, especially in front of a mostly young and female crowd there to see a famous North American author in the flesh. Burroughs jumped right into the book's subject and made no excuses for the radical departure Wolf represents: after defending his ability to factually recreate 40-year-old memories, he plainly admitted the potential for Wolf to end his writing career. Burroughs's genius is a casualness with the gut-wrenching truths and ludicrous peculiarities of those closest to him, and this quality kept the hour-long-plus talk from drifting into the morose. The woman asking questions exuded a dusty pomposity that eventually drove the wiry 42-year-old from his seat to prowl the stage and riff on his Asperger syndrome-afflicted brother and estranged mother. Safe to say the little boy who spent years being ignored in the woods of Massachusetts is still demanding to be heard. Those within earshot were better for it Friday night.
