Augusten Burroughs has a strange approach to Christmas if this collection of stories is anything to go by. As a child, after finally realising that Jesus and Santa were separate entities, he finds himself inexplicably kissing a life-size model of the latter and getting so wrapped up in the moment that he starts biting chunks off the figure's face and having to have his stomach pumped due to ingested plaster.
Twenty years later, and caught up in alcoholism and a promiscuous sex life, Burroughs wakes up to find himself naked in bed with an elderly man dressed as Santa, who confirms that the two did, briefly, have intercourse. "If one was sexually attracted to Santa, one had departed from mainstream reality," Burroughs writes. "Outlook not so good."
Anyone who has read the rest of Burroughs's non-fiction output – the wildly popular Running With Scissors, about his chaotic, neglected childhood; Dry, about his later alcohol and drug abuse and loss of a partner to HIV; and the other three volumes of his memoirs – knows not to expect tales of festive cheer from this latest book. They might also be surprised that there are any anecdotes from Burroughs's life left to tell.
Along with the X-rated Santa stories, the main thrust of the book is Burroughs's search for a proper Christmas, with a tree, lights and roast lunch and it's told in the sort of light-hearted style that makes a Christmas spent with tramps after a three-day bender sound like fun.
The story gets the closest to serious (but also to cliche) when Burroughs talks about finally falling in love and building a home. He gets his tree and someone to spend the holidays with but, inevitably, disaster strikes and it turns out to be "a lump of coal and reindeer-hit-by-car sandwiches Christmas. Just exactly like all the motherfucking rest of them".
Adverts and TV shows may have conned us into thinking that if we're having a miserable Christmas we're the only ones, but You Better Not Cry will be a bit of relief for people who'd rather hide under a blanket between Halloween and new year. It's consoling that no matter how bad things seem on Christmas morning, you're probably not waking up in an emergency ward after having your stomach or in a hotel room with amnesia and a stranger dressed as Saint Nick.
