Full exposure

Augusten Burroughs is busier than you are. That may sound snooty, but it’s true. In between frequent appearances on the college-lecture circuit, the 40-year-old writer-humorist is developing a series for Showtime, updating his website with “stupid little movies” and doing early press for Running with Scissors, the film adaptation of his 2002 memoir. (The feature, starring Annette Bening and Gwyneth Paltrow, was pushed back to a fall release because of its Oscar potential.) What’s more, Burroughs has begun preparing another collection of personal essays—one filled with tales about Christmas, Thanksgiving and all the other “hideous holidays” he’s experienced in his superbly twisted lifetime.

But let’s not forget his latest book, Possible Side Effects. Like 2004’s Magical Thinking, it consists of short, sharp accounts, such as “Locked Out,” which explains how a locksmith inspired him to quit drinking and get serious about writing, and “The Sacred Cow,” which examines a syndrome best described as gay postpartum depression. In the latter, Burroughs and his partner, Dennis, bring home a French bulldog (named “the Cow”), only to learn that their new pet may be damaged goods. “This little Cow,” writes Burroughs, “sat at the foot of the bed, staring us down and then making a peculiar, eerily human ‘hmpf’ sound as he let go of a gallon of fluid.”

Possible Side Effects covers a lot of ground, but the fact that Burroughs learns to love his defective dog underscores one of the stories’ common threads. “I’m usually a person of extremes,” the author recently told TONY, “so there’s this enormous benefit to exploring the gray areas.”

Burroughs used to be a paranoid alcoholic who was deeply concerned with how everyone perceived him, but at this point he’s exposed himself on paper so much that other people’s opinions are a nonissue. “I had a panic attack right when Scissors came out, like I had holes in me,” he remembers. “But that disappeared immediately after I had contact with real people who’d been through similar experiences.” One of those people was Nip/Tuck writer-director Ryan Murphy, who convinced Burroughs to let him adapt the book for the screen. Watching a rough cut of the film was a surreal experience, to say the least. “I can’t really describe it,” he says. “It’s like watching a home movie about my life, only it has great lighting and everyone looks really pretty.”

Possible Side Effects (St. Martin’s, $24) is out now.