Augusten Burroughs' 2002 memoir, "Running With Scissors," spent more than two years on the New York Times best-seller list and catapulted the author into literary fame. But skepticism was aroused when members of the adopted family he portrayed in the book filed a lawsuit claiming they were defamed.

The lawsuit was settled out of court last August, and despite reports to the contrary, it is still categorized a memoir on the St. Martin's Press Web site.

The ordeal hasn't deterred Burroughs from the genre. His latest offering, "A Wolf at the Table," is another memoir, this one chronicling the author's relationship with his father, who died in 2005. Coming to town this weekend for a reading and signing, Burroughs took a moment to discuss the new book:

Q: After the controversy with "Running With Scissors," were you hesitant to call the new book a memoir?

A: The controversy stemmed from the fact that the family filed a lawsuit against me and the movie studio while the movie was in production. That lawsuit eventually settled in my favor and not one word of "Running With Scissors" was altered. It is still a memoir and the family has agreed that it remains a memoir. . . . So while it would have been easy for me to just avoid the media circus over memoir by calling this a novel, I would never do that.

Q: This book is much darker and not as comical as your previous ones. Was that your intention or was that just the way these memories manifested themselves?

A: That's really just because it takes place earlier than my other books. During my adolescence, my life was so chaotic and so unsettling that . . . my innate sense of humor really became sharpened into a defense mechanism. If you can keep your sense of humor and find the absurd and ridiculous in even the worst situation, it acts as a life raft. But I didn't have that ability as a little boy, so I'm much more vulnerable and earnest in this book.

Q: Aside from your sense of humor and writing, have you had any other escape mechanisms to help you cope with the things you've gone through?

A: I have always been a laboratory scientist studying life and people and the tiniest details. As a result of the trauma I experienced as a kid, I focused on the doorknobs and windowsills of life. I think that's something a lot of writers have in common, feeling on the outside looking in and just watching with excruciating detail.

Q: You have homes in New York City and in rural Massachusetts. You seem to be drawn to similar extremes in your books. Any thoughts on why that might be?

A: I hadn't thought about that, but you're probably exactly right. I'm not the most balanced person. . . . I tend to go from watching endless episodes of "Battlestar Galactica" to not eating, not getting out of bed and just constantly writing. When I was living with the [adopted] family, there was a psychologist who lived nearby, and she told me, "You seem to have a pattern of destruction and rebuilding, destruction and rebuilding." And that's a pattern I think was inflicted upon me, and I have replicated in my life.

Q: Though you're from New England, your works are similar to Southern Gothic tales. Do you find readers in Atlanta connect with your books in a way people from other areas might not?

A: I always feel most at home when I come to the South. I am the first and only Yankee in my family for generations. [Burroughs' father was from Lawrenceville and his mother was from Cairo.] Even though I was raised in the North, I was the kid that grew up eating boiled peanuts and grits and Brunswick stew.

Atlanta is always one of my favorite stops on the tour because I just always feel like I'm with my people. I was raised in a Southern family, and they were certainly Gothic if they were nothing else. I remain a Southerner at heart and that's where my soul is.