Augusten Burroughs Settles Libel Lawsuit

Posted on August 29, 2007

Augusten Burroughs has settled a libel lawsuit filed against him in connection with his memoir, Running With Scissors. The Turcottes family sued over the horrifying description of their home and conduct in the book. The author lived with the family when he was a teenager. The Turcottes sued for $2 million in damages for defamation, invasion of privacy, and emotional distress. Burroughs' memoir is going to be called a book instead going forward. Burroughs will also say the book was not intended to hurt the Turcottes and a new acknowledgements note will say the Turcottes are "fine, decent, and hardworking people."

Burroughs, formerly Christopher Robison, lived with the Turcottes in Northampton as a teenager. According to the lawsuit, Burroughs' entire family was in therapy with Dr. Rodolph Turcotte, a psychiatrist. In 1980, Burroughs' mother asked Turcotte to become his legal guardian so he could attend Northampton schools. His mother still cared for him, but he had a room at the Turcottes' home.
Though the family in Burroughs' book is named "the Finches," the lawsuit claims they are easily identified as the Turcottes, and that Burroughs identified them in interviews.
Events in the book which the suit claimed were false include the Turcottes' condoning sexual affairs between children and adults, Turcotte's wife eating dog food and the family using an electroshock machine it stored under the stairs. The lawsuit claims the book also falsely portrays a home in unbelievable squalor, with a young child running around naked and defecating, and old turkey being stored in the showers.

The Turcottes say in a statement, "With this settlement, together with our settlement with Sony last year, we have achieved everything we set out to accomplish when we filed suit two years ago. We have always maintained that the book is fictionalized and defamatory. This settlement is the most powerful vindication of those sentiments that we can imagine."

The Turcottes and Mr. Burroughs appear to have quite differing recollections as to what the Turcotte home was like. Clearly, the author exaggerated quite a bit about the living conditions. We wonder how much he had to pay them to settle the lawsuit? We're thinking it was quite a lot of money.