A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father

As a little boy, I had a dream that my father had taken me to the woods where there was a dead body.

He buried it and told me I must never tell.

It was the only thing we'd ever done together as father and son, and I promised not to tell.

But unlike most dreams, the memory of this one never left me.

And sometimes…I wasn't altogether sure about one thing: was it just a dream? When Augusten Burroughs was small, his father was a shadowy presence in his life: a form on the stairs, a cough from the basement, a silent figure smoking a cigarette in the dark.

As Augusten grew older, something sinister within his father began to unfurl.

Something dark and secretive that could not be named.

Betrayal after shocking betrayal ensued, and Augusten's childhood was over.