Toil & Trouble
A Memoir
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
A Spellbinding Memoir of Witchcraft, Family Secrets, and the Power of Love
"Here's a partial list of things I don't believe in: God. The Devil. Heaven. Hell. Bigfoot. Ancient Aliens. Past lives. Life after death. Vampires. Zombies. Reiki. Homeopathy. Rolfing. Reflexology. Note that 'witches' and 'witchcraft' are absent from this list. The thing is, I wouldn't believe in them, and I would privately ridicule any idiot who did, except for one thing: I am a witch."
In this stunning memoir, Augusten Burroughs, the number one New York Times bestselling author, delves into his family's history of witchcraft and his own journey to understand the tricky power he wields. Descended from a long line of witches dating back to the early American colonies, Augusten and his mother shared an extraordinary bond—until the day she left him in the care of her psychiatrist to be raised in his family.
Navigating the world of this mysterious gift, Augusten chronicles his experiences, from the hilarious to the terrifying, in Toil & Trouble. Readers will learn that very few things in life are mere coincidences—ghosts are real, trees can want to kill you, beavers are the spawn of Satan, and houses are alive. At the heart of this touching and slightly spooky memoir lies the most powerful magic of all: love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In his whimsical but thin latest, Burroughs reveals another odd facet of the famously dysfunctional family life he recalled in his bestselling Running with Scissors: witchcraft. Having received the "Gift" of witchcraft powers from his mother and grandmother, witchery for Burroughs is not about flying broomsticks but rather visions, premonitions, and intense desires, focused by improvised "magick" rituals, that somehow nudge ordinary life in a fortunate direction. (His first try ends in a schoolyard bully getting his comeuppance via a poetically fitting medical condition.) In adulthood, a series of spells enable him and husband Christopher to move from Manhattan to a dream house in rural Connecticut, and the book is at heart an affectionate, gently humorous portrait of their neurotic version of domestic tranquility, told through picaresque anecdotes sometimes tangentially related to magic. A ghostly voice sounds at the 200-year-old manse; a tornado blows through; raucous local eccentrics show up; Christopher soothes Burroughs' manifold anxieties; Burroughs fusses over Christopher and dramatizes his own obsessions with decor, cleaning chores, landscaping, and dogs. The material is sometimes funny and touching, but too often it's mundane "the puppy is so perfectly behaved, not peeing once indoors." Burroughs's fans will love his comic riffs, but others may not fall under the spell of this uninvolving saga.
