Sedaris puts fun in dysfunction
What it is: In this case, the “what we like” is a “who” – David Sedaris, the best-selling writer, National Public Radio commentator, American expatriate and perhaps this country’s best-known former Macy’s Christmas elf.
What it’s all about: Like many of us, Sedaris has led a, shall we say, colorful life. He’s been a housepainter, a maid, an apple-picker and an unemployed, drug-addled, wannabe performance artist.
Unlike many of us, he has the ability to take his curious experiences – and, to a lesser extent, those of his fabulously dysfunctional family – and mine them for comic gold in a series of essays touching on everything from his fifth-grade battles with his speech therapist (“The woman spoke with a heavy western North Carolina accent, which I used to discredit her authority. Here was a person for whom the word pen had two syllables. Her people undoubtedly drank from clay jugs and hollered for Paw when the vittles were ready – so who was she to advise me on anything?”) to the wedding of his foul-mouth brother Paul, affectionately known as “The Rooster.”
Why we like it: Simply put, no one puts the fun into dysfunction quite like Sedaris, whether he’s hitchhiking across the country with a quadriplegic, trying in vain to explain the concept of the Easter bunny to a group of foreign classmates in France or helping his sister Amy (the actress best known from Comedy Central’s “Strangers With Candy”) pull off an elaborate prank involving the bottom half of a fat suit and an unsuspecting father.
The only thing better than reading his guffaw-inducing prose is hearing him read it aloud in his inimitable voice. In addition to owning all four of his books (plus the Christmas-theme collection, Holidays on Ice), I’ve seen two live performances in Dallas, keep an audio version of “Barrel Fever” in my car for any unplanned traffic snarls, and I’ve bought his latest book, “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim,” in both hardback and unabridged audio CD. And my devotion is hardly unusual. At this writing, “Dress Your Family” is No. 1 on the New York Times Nonfiction Best-Seller List for the second week (undoubtedly, to be dropped a notch by Bill Clinton’s “My Life”). Previous accolades include being named Time magazine’s 2001 Humorist of the Year and winning the Thurber Prize for American Humor. Something tells me his days as Crumpet the Christmas Elf are long gone.