The story of the traumatic childhood of writer Augusten Burroughs. After his parents' divorce, Augusten is abandoned by his mentally unstable, aspiring-poet mother and sent to live with her fraudulent psychiatrist and his nutty family. Realizing at age 13 that he is gay, he has an affair with a 33 year-old man. At 17, Augusten finally escapes the emotional chaos and moves to New York to become a writer.