David Sedaris

I first read about David Sedaris back in 1997. The local free weekly, The Advocate, did a story about his book Naked. There was a short excerpt in the article from the story "I Like Guys".

The paragraph that they used struck me as corny so I dismissed the idea of reading his book. He had written about one night at in the dorm room when he and his friend on the other bunk were both masturbating. The last sentence-"Our love had the power to move bunks"- seemed lame (I've come to like that story but I'm still bothered by that sentence).

I finally read the book after seeing the TV show Strangers With Candy , starring Sedaris's sister Amy. I loved that show and thought she was amazing so I decided to give his book a chance.

The first chapter "Chipped Beef" wasn't good and I skipped ahead to the next one "A Plague of Tics" and was blown away. Then there was "Get Your Ya-yas Out", which is probably the funniest thing I've ever read. I read and re-read that book so many times and it's still funny. "True Detective", another story from Naked, is a perfect piece of writing.

I bought his first book, Barrel Fever, and the follow-up to Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day. By the time that book came out Sedaris was very well-known and critics couldn't say enough good things about him.

I didn't find Me Talk as funny as Naked, but I think that's the nature of comedy. One of the most important elements of comedy is surprise. There were some laugh-out-loud moments in Me Talk, but for the most part it wasn't as funny because I knew what to expect. I imagine that if you asked people what their favorite David Sedaris book was they'd name the one that they'd read first.

Some people say that Sedaris's books aren't as funny as they used to be but I don't think that's true. And actually, while Naked is my favorite Sedaris book, a close second is Dress Your Family in Courdoroy and Denim.

The stories in Dress are funny, but mostly they're sad. Or bittersweet. I'm thinking about "Consider The Stars" where tells about trying to make friends with one of the kids in the popular crowd at his middle school. It's an amusing story but then the last two pages come and there's real yearning there.

The two stories about his youngest sister Tiffany are heartbreaking. First, in "Let It Snow" you see her as a little girl, desperate for affection, and l;ater, in "Put A Lid On It" you see her anger towards her brother and her whole family. Plus, you can tell that Sedaris is genuinely worried about her.

The saddest story in the book is "Repeat After Me". Again, it's a great story, told in a funny way and then you come to the end and it's heartbreaking beyond belief.

Which brings us to his latest book (I'm not counting Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, that's a different kind of book), When You Are Engulfed In Flames. Maybe it's because I'm not crazy about The New Yorker, but I get the feeling that his newer stories are trying too hard to be New Yorker pieces. Also, the long story, has the same problem that the final story in Naked, "Naked" had.

I've read a lot of people say that "Naked" felt tacked on, and they felt that he went to the nudist trailer park simply for material for a story. I have to agree and I feel the same way about "The Smoking Section". There's something about moving to Tokyo for a season to quit smoking that seems ________.

I can't think of the words to describe it, so I'll just say "not good".

Note: I read Alex Heard's Sedaris piece in The New Republic, "This American Lie" and I thought that it was bullshit and completely unfair. Heard deliberately misreprestents stories and tries to twist them around. I believe that after their Stephen Glass incident, The New Republic writers had it drilled into them every word that anyone types must be the absolute truth. I'm sure that after scrutenizing themselves, and then each other, they were hungry for someone else to target so they went after Sedaris.

Sedaris has always admitted that he exagerates, and really, if you're going to publish a conversation from when you were twelve, you're not going to remember everyone's exact words, so why not sharpen it to make the diologue as funny as possible? Alex Heard and The New Republic completely missed the point.

Anyway, I'll always love David Sedaris. He's an excellent writer, while the element of surprise isn't there, that doesn't mean that it can't come back. I look forward to reading Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk. Maybe Sedaris will take things to another level and we'll all be surprised again. If anyone can do it, he can.