Saturday, October 18, 2025

Review: Toil and Trouble, Augusten Burroughs 2019

Augusten Burroughs’s memoir Toil and Trouble is a strange, funny, and honest book where he claims he’s a witch. He’s not talking about the kind who rides a broom; he means he has a lifelong, inherited ability to know things he shouldn't and to nudge events in a certain direction through intense focus—what he calls "magick."

If you like his other books, like Running with Scissors, you’ll recognize his usual dark humor and open style. This time, he applies his unique voice to the question of whether "magick" explains the unusual things that have happened in his life.

The book jumps between stories from his childhood—when his mother told him he had this "gift"—and his current life in rural Connecticut with his sensible husband, Christopher. Burroughs describes his witchcraft as a feeling of knowing what’s coming or being able to make very unlikely things happen.

The memoir is also packed with the sort of eccentric, hilarious people Burroughs always seems to encounter, especially his odd neighbors in the country. These funny stories help balance out the book’s more serious and deep ideas.

The book is powerful because it treats these weird abilities not as a Hollywood fantasy, but as a confusing, real part of his life as someone who has dealt with a lot of trauma and anxiety. You might not believe he’s a witch, but as he shares stories—like a premonition of his grandmother's accident coming true—you start to see why he believes it.

The most emotional part comes at the end, when his "magick" vanishes while his husband is very sick. In that moment of helplessness, the book shifts. It becomes a deeply felt reflection on love, anxiety, and the things that no one can control, no matter what kind of power they think they have.

While the idea of witchcraft is the hook, the book is really about how one man makes sense of a difficult past and his anxiety-ridden present by deciding he is fundamentally different. It's a funny, tender, and very human story about finding meaning, even if that meaning is wrapped up in an odd, but comforting, label.

If you like Augusten Burroughs’s usual honest, dark comedy, this book is highly recommended. It’s a unique modern memoir about finding the extraordinary in everyday life.

Carolina Dean 
Witch

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