You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas

You Better Not Cry: Stories for Christmas

Augusten Burroughs

Language: English

Pages: 224

ISBN: 031243006X

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub


A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER about Christmases past and present from the #1 bestselling author of Running with Scissors, Dry, and A Wolf at the Table

At eight years old, Augusten Burroughs profoundly misunderstood the meaning of Christmas. Now proving himself once more "a master of making tragedy funny" (The Miami Herald), he shows how the holidays can bring out the worst in us and sometimes, just sometimes, the very best. From the author described in USA Today as "one of the most compelling and screamingly funny voices of the new century" comes a book about surviving the holiday we love to hate, and hate to love.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

their stomachs? But their legs have been chopped off and replaced with wheels!” So this year, I wanted to make sure I didn’t wake up on Christmas morning and find another stocking filled with more junk from his childhood—nails, paper clips, rocks. It amazed me that he loved Christmas almost as much as me, though for clearly different reasons. My father studied my documents. “Gold nuggets!” he said, alarmed. “What on earth are you going to do with gold nuggets?” I said, “Polish them. Have them.

the holiday spirit. Has anybody ever told you that you should be a father? I didn’t think so.” “I’m just saying. It’s a stupid song. And I can promise you, not one American born after the Dust Bowl has even the slightest idea what it’s about. Yet we all know it. We all sing it. Then we teach it to our brats and they run around singing it all year. “And what’s the message? Did you ever notice that a lot of the alleged ‘gifts’ happen to be people? Eight maids a-milking, so that’s prepubescent

walked out. What seemed like a couple of hours later, I suddenly sort of woke up I guess and found myself sitting on the filthy red carpeting outside the entrance to the Art Greenwich Twin at the top of my street. My back was pressed against the glass door to the lobby. And when I glanced down, I saw that my clothes—khakis, white T-shirt, blue button-down shirt, Timberland boots—everything I had on was inexplicably dirty. Almost as if I had been wearing the exact same outfit for days and done

to death or swallow your cigarette.” Then he said, “Oh, and ah, thanks again for the sandwiches. I’m not sure it registered the first time I told you,” and he chuckled and reached forward, slapping me on the shoulder. Was I among bums or frat boys? And who the fuck was Shirley? A third bum meandered over. This one was a little more fucked up. I mean, they were all fucked up. But the first two, there was something a little clean about them on the inside. They almost seemed like regular people.

couple of days.” Instead, he reached for his walkie-talkie and recalled the rest of the troop. That’s when they brought out the hatchets. Whole chunks of ceiling were removed, baseboards pried away from walls. Dennis’s prized carpet was ripped from the floor like a scab and carpet nails shot like sparks around the room. When they finally left, the house had been filleted, nine industrial dehumidifiers and high-output drying fans had been left behind and the heat had been turned up to ninety.

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