Even the most ardent fans of Augusten Burroughs may be disappointed that his newest book is yet another rehashing of his childhood. His eccentric mother and alcoholic father, however worthy of ink, were given a thorough airing in "Running With Scissors," as a best-selling memoir and a movie.

Burroughs' three other collections of nonfiction ("Dry," "Magical Thinking" and "Possible Side Effects") feature or have cameos by his spectacularly messed-up parents. For extra measure, Burroughs' brother John Elder Robison recently published his own memoir, "Look Me in the Eye," which cast further harsh light on the family.

What could "A Wolf at the Table" possibly tell any reader about this family that she doesn't already know by heart?

The family's secrets have long been spilled, and there isn't much new material here. What's new and worthy is Burroughs' tone: more balanced, nuanced and believable. Still a lot of drama? Yes. Outright spectacle? Not as much.

The memoir stars Burroughs' father and begs for the title "Daddy Dearest," a nod to the first 1978 parental skewering by Christina Crawford of her adoptive mother, actress Joan Crawford.

Any casual reader of Burroughs' work knows the key facts: His father drank — a lot. His father was plagued by severe psoriasis, a particularly gruesome ailment from a child's perspective. And his father was, at best, an emotionally distant parent. By demanding these traits to carry an entire book, they seem less monstrous than in Burroughs' earlier work.

Readers are also given more context in which to place fatherly faults. A tale of the father's own childhood suggests that he suffered harsher physical and emotional abuse than what he later doled out. Burroughs' mother is painted yet again as melodramatic and delusional, to the point that she may have exaggerated her husband's temper.

And Burroughs' portrait of himself as a child comprehends that, although he was indeed neglected through no fault of his own, this formed a young personality that could be needy and cloying.

"A Wolf at the Table" doesn't deliver the same heavy load of dirty family laundry that readers have come to love and expect from Burroughs. Rather, it's the story of his childhood frustration at not being allowed to tackle his father with hugs. This morphed into repeated, failed attempts to win his father's attention with news of adult success.

As the pre-eminent writer of family dysfunction, Burroughs makes a convincing new case for the common heartbreak of distance between fathers and sons.

Holly Silva is a St. Louis writer.