In 1996, he sought treatment for alcoholism at a rehabilitation center in Minnesota before returning to Manhattan. He decided to settle in New York City and worked for a Manhattan-based advertising company. He later enrolled at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as a pre-med student, dropping out before the end of the first semester. At age 18, living on his own in Boston, he legally changed his name to Augusten Xon Burroughs. A few months after Robison moved in, Turcotte allowed him to drop out of sixth grade. Robison's mother assigned legal guardianship to Turcotte, who believed that children became adults at 13. Rodolph Harvey Turcotte, whose ever-changing collection of children, adopted children and patients lived in a large ramshackle property in Northampton. His mother then sent the 12-year-old Christopher to live with the family of her psychiatrist, Dr. His older brother had already escaped the unstable home before their parents divorced on July 29, 1978. He was raised in various towns in Massachusetts, including Shutesbury, Amherst, and Northampton.

He is eight years younger than his brother, fellow memoirist John Elder Robison. Robison, former head of the philosophy department at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Augusten Xon Burroughs (born Christopher Richter Robison, October 23, 1965) is an American writer best known for his New York Times bestselling memoir Running with Scissors (2002).Ĭhristopher Richter Robison was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the younger of two sons of poet Margaret Robison and John G.

Augusten burroughs goodreads