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.
Like so many others, I read Running with Scissors when it was first released – telling the sad/funny story of a shocking childhood, it was a publishing phenomenon and established Augusten Burroughs as a superstar memoirist. When I followed that up with Dry (about Burroughs' lost years as an alcoholic copywriter), it felt like another intriguing puzzle piece had clicked into place, “Aha, that's how he got from there to here.” When he later released A Wolf at the Table, I was horrified to learn of Burroughs' cruel and abusive father (yet it provided another puzzle piece) and I was later gratified to learn that he had finally found love and stability with his husband, Christopher, in Lust & Wonder; you could definitely say that I'm a fan of Burroughs' style and tone, and having lived a life outside the bounds of anything I've known personally, his stories are always intriguing and provocative. With his latest, Toil & Trouble, Burroughs reveals that he's a witch – he always has been, as was his mother and grandmother (and long generations) before him – and while this didn't quite have the satisfying click of another puzzle piece being snapped into place (is he pulling our legs here?), his personal stories are as intriguing as ever and the details of his practise of magick (witchcraft not Wicca) was interesting to me as well. Most importantly, I continue to enjoy Burroughs' engaging writing style; this feels like checking in with an old friend, and I was happy to learn that things are going well for him.
Witchcraft is not supernatural; it's hypernatural. Witches are by default attuned to the thrumming network of connections that exist just beneath the obvious surface layer of reality we all experience. They are able to visualize an outcome to such a powerful and intense degree that something on the quantum level is triggered; a particle feels observed and thus decides whether it is in this state or that state.So, you're either going to believe or not believe that Burroughs is capable of some degree of premonition and that he is also able to use spells (really just a method of focussing his energies on a desired outcome) in order to influence the future. Because he was quite young when he discovered his “gift”, Burroughs was able to bond with his mother over witchcraft, and in the years before she had a mental breakdown, discussing magick and its uses seems to be the main form of nurturing that Burroughs received from her. Burroughs tells a few happy stories from his childhood, but this time around he also shares that being a witch was probably something that marked him as different to others as a child, and he tells more stories of being bullied by other children and the teachers at school; this was an unhappy childhood long before his mother sent him to live with her lunatic therapist:
Possibility was my fuel. It was the One Thing that prevented me from slitting my wrists on any given horrid day. The fact that at any moment, everything could change. As easily as you could be hit by a car, so you could be carried away by one.As a sort of framing device for revealing to the world that he is a witch, Burroughs explains how he decided he wanted to leave Manhattan and move to an old house in the country somewhere. Knowing that this would eventually happen, Burroughs needed to influence his husband (an avowed New Yorker till death), using both spells and his experience in marketing. The moment that Burroughs knew this move needed to happen was while out walking their two dogs past a brand new upscale playground in Battery Park at night; watching in disgust as it was overrun with giant rats:
This is a conglomeration – a rally, really, of rats that have traveled to get here. Not the relatively small “maybe-it-was-a-big-mouse” creatures that scuttle across the subway tracks, the hipster playground rodents are massive, overstimulated from munching on the Adderall tablets that tumble out of smock-dress and jeans pockets during the day. These are meaty, fleshy, muscular rats on stimulants, dragging their weighty genitals over all the bright yellow, sky blue, and fire-engine red child-friendly surfaces.Naturally, the move to the country does happen and this provides for many interesting and funny stories. The tone veers into David Sedaris' deadpan-witness-to-the-horrifying-range-of-human-types territory (there is a retired opera Diva in the next house over, a foul-mouthed handyman, a surfer dude arborist; all material for dry and cutting observation), and after he becomes good friends with their area real estate agent, Burroughs is brought along to meet some of her more eccentric clients, including a former male model, now in his sixties and preparing to sell his bizarrely decorated home in order to move to Europe for his comeback:
“I'll show you the master bedroom next,” he says over his shoulder, expecting us to follow, which we do, across the hall and into a large bedroom with a centrally positioned four-poster king-sized bed draped with multiple mink blankets, beneath which is a deep red velvet bedspread, beneath which are deep red satin sheets. Perhaps a dozen – probably more – pillows are positioned at the head of the bed, each “dented” perfectly in the center with one decisive karate chop of the hand. On the wall opposite the bed is a collection of framed photographs – Jefferey in Paris! Jefferey in the snow wearing a fur and laughing, his teeth one shade whiter than the snow itself! Jefferey in a white tuxedo, arms crossed and smiling! Jefferey in a powdered wig and waxed moustache! And in the center of these photographs is a gigantic oil painting of his face set like a rare blue diamond into a gilt rococo frame. His own face would be the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth thing he'd see each morning.(It's hard to tell if that passage really captures how bizarre this encounter was; every scene builds to a vibrating thrum of the uncanny.) Like me, I'd imagine anyone who has been following Augusten Burroughs and his memoirs since the beginning will be happy to read that the move to the country has been good for him, his husband, and their (at the time of writing, four) dogs; the witch stuff is interesting but didn't really blow my mind. I was pleased to read that through (the purported use of) magick, Burroughs has reached a place of reconciliation with his long dead mother, and for someone with so many ghosts, Burroughs is in a place of calm and happiness. Another intriguing story, well told; I'll continue to check in with Burroughs for as long as he keeps writing.
