Doctor's family
sues over Running With Scissors

The Publisher's Lunch newsletter reports that six relatives of the late Dr. Rodolph H. Turcotte are suing out author Augusten Burroughs, Burroughs's agent, and publisher St. Martin's over the depiction of Turcotte and his family in Burroughs's memoir Running With Scissors. While the Turcottes were referred to as the Finches in the 2002 book, the family alleges that they are easily recognized in the autobiography and that Burroughs "fabricated events that never happened and manufactured conversations that never occurred" in order to "knowingly cause harm and humiliation to the Turcotte family." The suit, filed in a Middlesex, Mass., court, demands a public retraction of the book and a statement from the publisher that Scissors is a novel and not nonfiction. The film version of Running With Scissors, written and directed by gay Nip/Tuck creator Ryan Murphy, is set for release in 2006.