There is nary an NPR fan who hasn't heard of "The Santaland Diaries," David Sedaris' breakthrough account of working as a Macy's Christmas elf. The story has been published in at least two books; annually broadcast (in condensed form) on NPR; recorded as a book-on-tape and podcasted; and adapted to stage. "Santaland" is the kind of horrifying real-life comedy that voyeurs love. And luckily for the voyeurs, David Sedaris is a professional exhibitionist. No scrap of his eventful life is left unwritten.
Sedaris' most recent volume is When You Are Engulfed in Flames, yet another collection of essays published in The New Yorker and broadcast on Public Radio. Some aspects of Flames are consistent with his entire oeuvres -- self-effacing essays about awkward moments and lessons learned.
But unlike, say, Mitch Albom, Sedaris has an affection for creeps and losers, hicks and sociopaths. Sedaris has a past marred by hitchhiking, chain-smoking, cocaine-binges, cruddy jobs and obsessive-compulsive disorder, not to mention his loudmouth mother (who succumbed to cancer) and eccentric father (who stuffs his pockets with spare food).
If you are new to Sedaris, here is a brief snapshot of his eventful life, as summarized by the books that made his name famous:
Barrel Fever
Sedaris was still working as a Manhattan house-cleaner when Barrel Fever went to press, and much of the book concerns his woeful life of deodorizing and tub-scrubbing. Barrel Fever is an odd double-feature of (fictional) short stories and diary-like essays. This is by far his grittiest work: an illegitimate Vietnam daughter drowns her step-mother's baby; a nameless protagonist describes his erotic affair with Mike Tyson and Charlton Heston; a bratty son is stalked by his family's loathsome maid, etc. The young Sedaris relished his misanthropy; all his characters are freaks and psychos.
Naked
Arguably his most cohesive work, Naked is subheaded "essays" but is really a kind of staggered autobiography. Each chapter reveals a stage of his life: as OCD child licking doorknobs; as a road-tripping college student; as an apple-picker in Oregon and a house-painter in Chicago.
In the titular essay, Sedaris has buried his mother and floats around aimlessly before staggering into an ad for a nudist colony. Relieved of his clothing and emotional baggage, Sedaris seems to reach an epiphany about his life's purpose: He can see people "naked," and he can describe them in intimate detail. "It was as if I'd received the true version of the X-ray specs I'd ordered as a child," he writes. By far his more impressive and enduring work, Naked is the memoir that secured his fame.
Holidays on Ice
A slim paperback of Christmas stories, Holidays best functioned as a novelty gift for Sedaris fanatics or serious readers who had never delved into Sedaris' works. The book is easily skipped.
Me Talk Pretty One Day
Here began Sedaris' life as a serial essayist, writing for a slew of magazines and eventually lassoing the works together. By this point, it was unimaginable for Sedaris to write about anyone other than himself -- a traditional profile or expose -- limiting his power a nonfiction writer but cementing a style for the rest of his life.
Sedaris cranks out stories about North Carolina and New York, but his most interesting material concerns moving to France: The book's namesake, "Me Talk Pretty One Day," is about his anarchic attempt to learn French; his class, filled with students from all over the world, has no lingua franca (as it were), and they all struggle to puzzle out French without much success.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Just as Sedaris' writing style has homogenized, so has his titling technique: Each book is named more weirdly than the last, as if the author strives for the most surreal possible grouping of words. Where Me Talk Pretty One Day introduced his trashy brother "Rooster," Corduroy embellishes his character and makes him a little more human; Sedaris' father evolves as well.
The funniest essay, perhaps of all, is "Six to Eight Black Men," a side-splitting description of Dutch Christmas rituals. St. Nicholas is recast as the Archbishop of Turkey, and, according to Sedaris' Dutch cabbie, he arrives on the shores of Amsterdam, aided by his African "friends," to beat up misbehaving children. When Sedaris reads this for live performance, the essay makes audiences weepy with laughter.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames
At the time of this article's writing, Sedaris' latest book (Little Brown and Co., 2008) is about to be released, but readers who have kept up with his work in The New Yorker will recognize much of its content: quotidian tales about living in France with his boyfriend, Hugh, mishaps on airplanes and remembrances of smoking marijuana with his brother.
Considering the breakneck weirdness of his life and relationships, Sedaris seems to have exhausted every aspect of his existence; we can read about Sedaris' recent lancing of a pustule, but it hardly matches the frenetic soul-searching of his younger years. Within the next decade, he will become a credible middle-aged man, graying and cantankerous and perhaps (although it is hard to imagine) writing about a life other than his own.
Reading Advice
The best approach to Sedaris is to read Naked first, then his nonfiction collections in order of release, then double-back to Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, which serve better as desserts to Sedaris' large and starchy meal. Although Sedaris has matured and mellowed, one thing remains constant: If you jive with his style, you will never grow tired of him.
