Running with Memoirs

What if your famous son wrote a memoir that painted you as a mom who was as neglectful as you were nutty? That happened to Margaret Robinson, whose son Chris grew up to change his name and write the bestselling memoir ... wait for it ... Running with Scissors.

NPR digs her up and posts a profile on All Things Considered.

There have been few mothers as monstrous as the one in his memoir Running with Scissors. In it, Robison is described as so cold and self-absorbed that she gives away her young son to her psychiatrist.

But it turns out that she is a quiet literary person who sounds much more rueful about about losing the closeness with her son (they used to write together and critique each other's work), than about how she was portrayed in print.

As James Frey's experiences have pointed up, the hotter the memoir, the more grains of salt the reader has to take it with.