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Waking Up in Toytown: A Memoir
In the early 80s, after a decade of drug abuse and borderline mental illness, John Burnside resolved to escape his addictive personality and find calm in a 'Surbiton of the mind'. But the suburbs are not quite as normal as he had imagined and, as he relapses into chaos, he encounters a homicidal office worker who is obsessed with Alfred Hitchcock and Petula Clark, an old lover, with whom he reprises a troubled, masochistic relationship and, finally, the seemingly flesh-and-blood embodiemnts of all his private phantoms.
The sequel to his haunting, celebrated account of a troubled childhood, Waking Up in Toytown is unsettling, touching, oddly romantic and unflinchingly honest.
274 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 1, 2010
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167 people want to read
About the author
John Burnside
96 books277 followersJohn Burnside was a Scottish writer. He was the author of nine collections of poetry and five works of fiction. Burnside achieved wide critical acclaim, winning the Whitbread Poetry Award in 2000 for The Asylum Dance which was also shortlisted for the Forward and T.S. Eliot prizes. He left Scotland in 1965, returning to settle there in 1995. In the intervening period he worked as a factory hand, a labourer, a gardener and, for ten years, as a computer systems designer. Laterly, he lived in Fife with his wife and children and taught Creative Writing, Literature and Ecology courses at the University of St. Andrews.
[Author photo © Norman McBeath]
[Author photo © Norman McBeath]
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
November 10, 2019
Es ist nicht nur der Alkoholismus, der Burnside (denn es handelt sich offensichtlich um einen autobiografischen Text) von einem „normalen“ Leben trennte, sondern auch seine Apophänie, eine verzerrte Wahrnehmung der Realität. So hört er, wenn er nachts wach liegt, in den Rohren und Wänden die Stimmen von Frauen und Kindern. Schon die erste Szene beeindruckt: Der Erzähler kommt in einer Nervenheilanstalt zu sich, weiß nicht wie er dort hingekommen ist, weiß nicht, ob er einfach gehen kann, weiß nicht, ob er gerade laut geredet oder nur gedacht hat und erinnert sich nicht, woher er die Person ihm gegenüber kennt. Er erkennt, mal wieder, dass er sein Leben ändern muss. Doch die Anonymen Alkoholiker scheinen ihm nicht der rechte Ort; das Leben in einem beschaulichen Vorort soll Ordnung bringen, er entscheidet sich für den Londoner Vorort Surbiton. Doch die guten Vorsätze sind schnell dahin, angesichts eines öden Jobs, Schlaflosigkeit, latenter Selbstmordgefahr und immer wieder dem in Versuchung führenden Alkohol. Fasziniert beobachtet man, wie der Erzähler immer wieder abtriftet. Sein Umfeld ist dabei nicht besser und spiegelt nur seine eigene Trostlosigkeit. Da ist die Kneipenbekanntschaft: Ein Mann, der ihn im Suff versucht anzustiften, seine verhasste Frau zu ermorden (à la „Der Fremde im Zug“), dann ist da die Affäre mit einer alleinerziehenden Mutter, die zu seinem Schrecken ihren Kindern Schlafmittel einflößt, um mit ihm um die Häuser ziehen zu können. Eine Kollegin, mit der etwas anderes als eine Affäre möglich wäre – ein Gespräch. Aber sie stirbt und wird damit in seiner Erinnerung umso mehr zum Spielball seiner Sehnsüchte. Weitere (selbst-)zerstörerische Affären und Beziehungen...
Das ist abgrundtief deprimierend, aber auch wunderschön. Eindrücke werden so einfühlsam wiedergegeben, dass man gleich den Lyriker erkennt. Assoziationen aus Filmen und Büchern sind fester Bestandteil des Lebens. Auch wie er an einem Sonntag vormittag in einer Straße die Atmosphäre eines Edward Hopper-Bildes entdeckt, hat mir sehr gefallen. Musik spielt ebenso eine Rolle, zur Orientierung: Wir befinden uns in den 80er Jahren und die entsprechende Pop-Musik ist omnipräsent.
Es handelt sich nicht um eine Autobiografie im herkömmlichen Sinne – der Verlag nennt das Buch auch nicht so, allerdings auch nicht Roman. Atmosphärisch dicht, sinnlich, traurig, lässt es sich aber durchaus als Roman lesen.
Das ist abgrundtief deprimierend, aber auch wunderschön. Eindrücke werden so einfühlsam wiedergegeben, dass man gleich den Lyriker erkennt. Assoziationen aus Filmen und Büchern sind fester Bestandteil des Lebens. Auch wie er an einem Sonntag vormittag in einer Straße die Atmosphäre eines Edward Hopper-Bildes entdeckt, hat mir sehr gefallen. Musik spielt ebenso eine Rolle, zur Orientierung: Wir befinden uns in den 80er Jahren und die entsprechende Pop-Musik ist omnipräsent.
Es handelt sich nicht um eine Autobiografie im herkömmlichen Sinne – der Verlag nennt das Buch auch nicht so, allerdings auch nicht Roman. Atmosphärisch dicht, sinnlich, traurig, lässt es sich aber durchaus als Roman lesen.
October 15, 2014
This is life writing in a manner I have not experienced before. It is mundane, tawdry, sometimes queasy shot through with lyrical brilliance. Here is a poet exposing all his frailties in a manner that is sometimes shocking, other times incredibly moving. John Burnside like John Flare is poet of wood and valley, sky and sea but he is also half in love with death and the road to the afterlife winds along outside his back garden. Highly recommended.
March 18, 2017
Beautifully observed journey into madness and back, I loved the poetry, the artistry of images. When I read A Lie About My Father, I wanted more. This is the more.
September 5, 2013
Picked this up at the Delhi Book Fair this year, where it was lying among a few forgotten poetry collections. I'm glad. At least someone knew John Burnside is a poet, and that someone had stacked this among books of verse.
This is a slow, sometimes sad, sometimes hopeless, but always beautiful book about madness, depression and the voices we hear in our heads. The voices John Burnside hears are different from what you and me hear; he is a lunatic, a drunk, an addict. And hence the words that he writes are different too - heartfelt, soulful prose.
This is a story of trying to save oneself, but not knowing how, and losing the battle, again and again and again. In trying to make something 'normal' out of himself, John Burnside tries to get himself to join the world of the middle class, blue-collar workforce, with brick homes and solid families and stable relationships. But all he finds is chaos, even in the make-believe middle class world, a place which he believed was calm and 'everyday'. It is not. It is as fucked up as his own head is, and this plunges him even more into his madness.
The book is made up of his experiences, imaginings and thoughts as he tries, hard, to make a life out of what he has. And his words evoke the beauty of simple moments that would otherwise be just incidents lost to time, things we wouldn't think about or reflect on later. The girl who looks at him once, talks to him a few times and dies. The schoolgirl who befriends him, falls in love with him, who he loses, and finds again only to have her disown him, and send him off into a freefalling breakdown.
The passage I loved most is John's visit to the States on his job, and his description of the 'American Night' as something to be smelled, felt and experienced. This was almost a tribute to Kerouac, and for me that was symbolic.
Because Kerouac was mad too, in a very mad way.
Last Sunday, when I read the bulk of the book, I was drunk, and far away from home in a new city with nothing to hold on to, I found myself depressed and lonely - a feeling of utter melancholy Burnside did nothing to dispel. But it was in that state, drunk and cold in the middle of the night under a dying lamp in my small balcony, that I was able to withstand the weight of the beautiful, poetic prose Burnside was throwing at me.
I was able to understand that it is in the small hours, when the rest of the world sleeps and shadows seem to conspire against you and form images that don't exist and you think about things that haven't happened, that you know.
You know that in a way, you are mad too.
This is a slow, sometimes sad, sometimes hopeless, but always beautiful book about madness, depression and the voices we hear in our heads. The voices John Burnside hears are different from what you and me hear; he is a lunatic, a drunk, an addict. And hence the words that he writes are different too - heartfelt, soulful prose.
This is a story of trying to save oneself, but not knowing how, and losing the battle, again and again and again. In trying to make something 'normal' out of himself, John Burnside tries to get himself to join the world of the middle class, blue-collar workforce, with brick homes and solid families and stable relationships. But all he finds is chaos, even in the make-believe middle class world, a place which he believed was calm and 'everyday'. It is not. It is as fucked up as his own head is, and this plunges him even more into his madness.
The book is made up of his experiences, imaginings and thoughts as he tries, hard, to make a life out of what he has. And his words evoke the beauty of simple moments that would otherwise be just incidents lost to time, things we wouldn't think about or reflect on later. The girl who looks at him once, talks to him a few times and dies. The schoolgirl who befriends him, falls in love with him, who he loses, and finds again only to have her disown him, and send him off into a freefalling breakdown.
The passage I loved most is John's visit to the States on his job, and his description of the 'American Night' as something to be smelled, felt and experienced. This was almost a tribute to Kerouac, and for me that was symbolic.
Because Kerouac was mad too, in a very mad way.
Last Sunday, when I read the bulk of the book, I was drunk, and far away from home in a new city with nothing to hold on to, I found myself depressed and lonely - a feeling of utter melancholy Burnside did nothing to dispel. But it was in that state, drunk and cold in the middle of the night under a dying lamp in my small balcony, that I was able to withstand the weight of the beautiful, poetic prose Burnside was throwing at me.
I was able to understand that it is in the small hours, when the rest of the world sleeps and shadows seem to conspire against you and form images that don't exist and you think about things that haven't happened, that you know.
You know that in a way, you are mad too.
November 7, 2011
It's difficult to write a review of such a beautifully written book because it feels paltry in comparison. Burnside is a poet, and you can tell it in his use of language where he can make the mundane seem as gripping as a thriller, the emotion and tension as taut as a guitar string stretched to breaking point (one of his similes). This is the second instalment of Burnside's autobiography - I haven't read the first - and it tells of his working and personal life which, on the surface, isn't that much more remarkable or unremarkable than thousands of other people's lives. Burnside, however, lives his life on the cusp of madness, using alcohol and occasionally drugs to try and calm his sometimes fevered existence, while trying to explain to himself just how he came to be. His tales of the alcoholic's life and experience are disquieting and disturbing because he relates it all in such a matter of fact way. There doesn't seem to be regret over the lost hours in the bars and the bottle, more an acceptance of it as a facet of who he was, or is. Anyone who has ever woken more than once at four in the morning, lying on the sofa with the tv blaring away and a vague memory of starting drinking at some point previously in the evening will feel a cold shudder reading some of these passages. Either that, or they'll go and fix themselves a drink.
He takes the same approach to his "madness", his apophenia. He presents it as an altered state that's no better or worse than whatever normality is, but feels that he prefers it to a lot of "normal life" he sees lived by others. Perhaps most outsiders see themselves this way, that while the discontentment and restlessness causes pain, it's worth it in comparison to an alternative of boredom brought through contentment.
Although on the surface this is a fairly straightforward autobiography, it's a much deeper, philosophical and psychological examination of a state of being. I'm not sure I can explain it much more, you'll have to read it and see if it captivates and captures your attention as much as it did mine. But I'd certainly recommend it as one of the most original and thoughtful autobiographies I've read.
He takes the same approach to his "madness", his apophenia. He presents it as an altered state that's no better or worse than whatever normality is, but feels that he prefers it to a lot of "normal life" he sees lived by others. Perhaps most outsiders see themselves this way, that while the discontentment and restlessness causes pain, it's worth it in comparison to an alternative of boredom brought through contentment.
Although on the surface this is a fairly straightforward autobiography, it's a much deeper, philosophical and psychological examination of a state of being. I'm not sure I can explain it much more, you'll have to read it and see if it captivates and captures your attention as much as it did mine. But I'd certainly recommend it as one of the most original and thoughtful autobiographies I've read.
May 17, 2025
John Burnsides „Wie alle anderen“ ist die Fortsetzung seiner romanhaften Autobiographie „Lügen über meinen Vater“ und schildert ungeschönt, aber in schöner Prosa seinen Kampf mit Alkohol‑ und Drogenabhängigkeit sowie einer formellen Schizophrenie-Diagnose in den 1980er‑Jahren. Nachdem er Zeuge der Gewalt und Sucht seines Vaters wurde, erkennt er, dass er selbst auf demselben zerstörerischen Pfad ist: Er rutscht von Rausch zu Rausch, hört Stimmen und verliert zunehmend den Bezug zur Realität.
Um der Abwärtsspirale zu entkommen, fasst Burnside den Entschluss, „wie alle anderen“ zu leben – ein bürgerliches Dasein mit geregelter Arbeit und vermeintlicher Normalität. Er beginnt als Gärtner, erhält u.a. überraschend eine Stelle als Programmierer im Landwirtschaftsministerium und versucht, sein Leben zu ordnen. Alles ist an eine Utopie des Vorstadtlebens gekoppelt. Doch die psychischen Erkrankungen setzen ihn weiterhin unter Druck und zeigen, wie schwer es ist, innere Dämonen zu bekämpfen. Am Ende bleibt die Frage nach echter Zugehörigkeit: Kann er wirklich „normal“ sein, oder bleibt die Suche nach Normalität eine Illusion?
Das ist sozusagen die Grundbedingung diesen lebensweisen Buches, welches im Übrigen auf der Suche nach Normalität scheitert und erst in der Annahme der Nichtnormalität einen Weg aufzutun scheint.
Das Ganze ist ansprechend geschrieben und übersetzt sowie kulturell verwoben.
Eine spannende, anrührende Lektüre.
Um der Abwärtsspirale zu entkommen, fasst Burnside den Entschluss, „wie alle anderen“ zu leben – ein bürgerliches Dasein mit geregelter Arbeit und vermeintlicher Normalität. Er beginnt als Gärtner, erhält u.a. überraschend eine Stelle als Programmierer im Landwirtschaftsministerium und versucht, sein Leben zu ordnen. Alles ist an eine Utopie des Vorstadtlebens gekoppelt. Doch die psychischen Erkrankungen setzen ihn weiterhin unter Druck und zeigen, wie schwer es ist, innere Dämonen zu bekämpfen. Am Ende bleibt die Frage nach echter Zugehörigkeit: Kann er wirklich „normal“ sein, oder bleibt die Suche nach Normalität eine Illusion?
Das ist sozusagen die Grundbedingung diesen lebensweisen Buches, welches im Übrigen auf der Suche nach Normalität scheitert und erst in der Annahme der Nichtnormalität einen Weg aufzutun scheint.
Das Ganze ist ansprechend geschrieben und übersetzt sowie kulturell verwoben.
Eine spannende, anrührende Lektüre.
October 31, 2016
Ich muss gestehen, dass ich an "Wie alle anderen" keinerlei Erwartungen hatte und alles auf mich zukommen ließ. Da es sich hierbei um eine doch recht knallharte und sehr ehrliche Autobiographie von John Burnside handelt, ist es immer schwer, ein Menschenleben tatsächlich zu bewerten, Fakt ist jedoch, dass ich seine Geschichte sehr interessant fand.
In "Wie alle anderen" schreibt John Burnside hauptsächlich über seine Drogensucht sowie seine Alkoholprobleme. Er beschließt für sich, dass er ein ganz normales, "bürgerliches" Leben führen möchte, ob dies allerdings tatsächlich so erstrebenswert ist, ist dabei immer die Frage.
Manchmal hatte ich jedoch das Gefühl, dass der Autor zu oft abdriftet und sich dabei oftmals an belanglosen Dingen festklammert, sodass "Wie alle anderen" stellenweise auf der Stelle stand. In anderen Momenten fand ich seine Gedanken und Schilderungen allerdings so interessant, dass ich das Buch kaum aus den Händen legen konnte.
Ich habe gelesen, dass einige andere Leser kritisiert haben, dass der Autor seine Geschichte dabei doch recht nüchtern und ohne große Gefühle schildert. Mich hat dies ehrlich gesagt nicht gestört, da dieser Stil bestens zu seinem Leben passt. Hätte er sich bei "Wie alle anderen" lediglich auf seine Gefühle verlassen und manche Dinge nicht aus einer anderen Sichtweise beobachtet, wäre die Geschichte wohl nicht so authentisch und knallhart geworden, wie es jetzt der Fall ist.
Über das Cover kann man ebenfalls geteilter Meinung sein. Einige finden es zu steril, ich finde es dagegen zwar auch sehr nüchtern, allerdings passt es hervorragend zur Geschichte, da der Inhalt kein vollgepacktes Cover nötig hat. Die Kurzbeschreibung hat mich spontan angesprochen, sodass ich es mit dem Buch gerne mal versuchen wollte.
Kurz gesagt: "Wie alle anderen" ist eine oftmals interessante, aber auch sehr nüchterne und verwirrende Autobiographie nach der Sehnsucht, ein normales und bürgerliches Leben zu führen. Wer sich für Autobiographen im Allgemeinen interessiert, sollte hier definitiv mal einen Blick drauf werfen.
In "Wie alle anderen" schreibt John Burnside hauptsächlich über seine Drogensucht sowie seine Alkoholprobleme. Er beschließt für sich, dass er ein ganz normales, "bürgerliches" Leben führen möchte, ob dies allerdings tatsächlich so erstrebenswert ist, ist dabei immer die Frage.
Manchmal hatte ich jedoch das Gefühl, dass der Autor zu oft abdriftet und sich dabei oftmals an belanglosen Dingen festklammert, sodass "Wie alle anderen" stellenweise auf der Stelle stand. In anderen Momenten fand ich seine Gedanken und Schilderungen allerdings so interessant, dass ich das Buch kaum aus den Händen legen konnte.
Ich habe gelesen, dass einige andere Leser kritisiert haben, dass der Autor seine Geschichte dabei doch recht nüchtern und ohne große Gefühle schildert. Mich hat dies ehrlich gesagt nicht gestört, da dieser Stil bestens zu seinem Leben passt. Hätte er sich bei "Wie alle anderen" lediglich auf seine Gefühle verlassen und manche Dinge nicht aus einer anderen Sichtweise beobachtet, wäre die Geschichte wohl nicht so authentisch und knallhart geworden, wie es jetzt der Fall ist.
Über das Cover kann man ebenfalls geteilter Meinung sein. Einige finden es zu steril, ich finde es dagegen zwar auch sehr nüchtern, allerdings passt es hervorragend zur Geschichte, da der Inhalt kein vollgepacktes Cover nötig hat. Die Kurzbeschreibung hat mich spontan angesprochen, sodass ich es mit dem Buch gerne mal versuchen wollte.
Kurz gesagt: "Wie alle anderen" ist eine oftmals interessante, aber auch sehr nüchterne und verwirrende Autobiographie nach der Sehnsucht, ein normales und bürgerliches Leben zu führen. Wer sich für Autobiographen im Allgemeinen interessiert, sollte hier definitiv mal einen Blick drauf werfen.
April 10, 2024
This book captured my attention on a clearance at a library by its mysterious title. Glad I have taken it with me. One of the best books I read in the subject of a memoir; the accounts written by John Burnside are magnetic, kind of dancing in the dark, and I felt sympathy for the author facing his inner devils, though I felt repulse for many characters there, and some were not as mad as John.
When I ended the book, I revisited some of the stories, to be honest they are some many and rich that I forgot a few of them. I guess this is also part of the exercise of writing memories when you are a writer can you write from scratch, maybe the reader cant have an acute memory too. Lastly, the author leaves us an advice, he tried hard to be normal, but normality is the worst kind of madness, it's not a problem to try, he had failed, in the end the self was stronger that the feeling to belong to a herd in the suburbs. In some way or another, like John Burnside, we do our choices. We have our Surbitons waiting for us.
When I ended the book, I revisited some of the stories, to be honest they are some many and rich that I forgot a few of them. I guess this is also part of the exercise of writing memories when you are a writer can you write from scratch, maybe the reader cant have an acute memory too. Lastly, the author leaves us an advice, he tried hard to be normal, but normality is the worst kind of madness, it's not a problem to try, he had failed, in the end the self was stronger that the feeling to belong to a herd in the suburbs. In some way or another, like John Burnside, we do our choices. We have our Surbitons waiting for us.
November 23, 2021
This is good. John is a not always totally has been drinker and has done time in mental health units and with AA. He tries the life of 'normality' working in IT. But having a very unhealthy outside work life with a number of women that I feel rather sorry for, although he has something to offer them. He has a strong voice and I think is not an altogether likeable person. But what fascinated me was his working at the dreadful MAFF in Guildford, where I worked, and his description is certainly very authentic. It was a dreadful place. And he tried the suburban life by doing up a house in Bramley where I went to school. Quite a read.
September 17, 2019
Wonderful, profound and meaningful (to me). But I couldn't really say why. Yes, the language is direct but poetic. Yes, he distils the big hammer strokes of life in recounting the everyday. Yes, he nails our desperation in the face of so much meaninglessness. Yes, his honesty speaks about that which almost always remains unsaid. But still, how did he do it!
July 5, 2025
Burnside is untouchable. Nobody better. Under appreciated. All his work stands up to repeated rereading. Absolute one off genius. Sadly missed but what a body of work to leave behind.
January 21, 2016
"Waking Up in Toytown" is said to pick up biographically where "A Lie About My Father" left off. After 13 years of alcohol and drug abuse Burnside determines to run away to the suburbs and live a normal life. The book delivers an account of how, for a long time, Burnside wanted to be normal and how he came to believe that normality, which he defines as “an astonishing gift for pretending”, was the only antidote to the wild, self-destructive patterns of alcohol and madness that filled and directed more than a decade of his life. His vision of normality he describes as “a simplified world of autumn leaves and buses and a house in a side street where a man could live clean and true”. In the days when “I was a full-scale lunatic”, the pathology Burnside’s madness took was a condition called apophenia, which is defined as “the unmotivated seeing of connections”, coupled with the “specific experience of an abnormal meaningfulness”.This involves “seeing things that weren’t there. Hearing voices in the background static. Finding God or the devil in the last scrapings of Pot Noodle.” But possibly worse than that is his tendency for destructive relationships. The desperate drinking sessions with another alcoholic, the affair with an old flame, now married, the connection with a single mum where Burnside has more emotional bonds with her kids than her, and finally a non-physical affinity with a 15-year-old schoolgirl.
His recollection of dark days trying to recover from alcohol abuse is performed with a self-awareness that never becomes navel-gazing, and a philosophising on the nature of existence that never descends into preaching. The addict writes himself into a kind of sanity. In the end Burnside has understood that sanity and normality are not the same thing.
His recollection of dark days trying to recover from alcohol abuse is performed with a self-awareness that never becomes navel-gazing, and a philosophising on the nature of existence that never descends into preaching. The addict writes himself into a kind of sanity. In the end Burnside has understood that sanity and normality are not the same thing.
August 26, 2010
Extraordinary book from an extraordinary poet. This is part two of his autobiography, following on from "A lie about my father" which I would recommend as well. Poetry is hardly mentioned in either of the two volumes although the passages about losing oneself - be it through mental illness, alcohol, drugs, suburban anonymity or (in one of the book's most beautiful sections) unaccompanied flight - could be read as a kind of poetic modus operandi.
December 29, 2014
Full of wonderful little details that make the mundane life of a troubled drifter somehow absorbing and sometimes extraordinary, the author personal events largely from his tenties or thirties. Clearly the work of a poet, I've been aware of Burnside for some time but hadn't read any of his books until now - I will be reading more.
October 3, 2016
This book was recommended to me and I jumped in head first. I knew nothing of the author, only that he was a poet with some non-fiction under his belt. Descriptions likened to paintings made it a pleasure to read, even if the topic gets a bit difficult at times. What is normal anyway? Eccentric is a good description; I'd rather be that than mad.
December 4, 2018
8.1/10
John Burnside’s memoir, Waking Up in Toytown, teeters the line between psychosis and normalcy in a way that is truly maddening. The prose’s weave and bob style may slow the pace but it is well earned through the use of often beautifully lyrical passages.
John Burnside’s memoir, Waking Up in Toytown, teeters the line between psychosis and normalcy in a way that is truly maddening. The prose’s weave and bob style may slow the pace but it is well earned through the use of often beautifully lyrical passages.
February 9, 2013
The perfect memoir is an honest memoir and you feel that this author always chooses the path of honest path.
January 26, 2013
I can only quote a friend to whom I recommended this: 'Finished reading Waking Up In Toytown. Brilliant. Passages which burn through the page and set the smoke alarm off.'
March 26, 2013
Burnside wrote it so honestly and very well. Really enjoyed the book.
January 20, 2017
Puh, dieses Leben zwischen Wahnsinn und Alkoholsucht-einfach schrecklich. Seltsam, dass er Bücher schreiben konnte und wohl auch erfolgreich ist.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews