Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me” in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird.īut if all you expect to find in Sedaris’s work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. And it is almost impossible to read without laughing.

It opens our eyes to what is at absurd and moving about our daily existence.

A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. There’s a difference between those things.“Genius… It is miraculous to read these pieces… You must read The Best of Me.” -Andrew Sean Greer, New York Times Book ReviewĪ New York Times Book Review Editors’ ChoiceĪ CNN and Christian Science Monitor Best Book of the Monthįor more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. If he’s hoarding food under the sink in his bathroom, that’s just eccentric. If your father is forcing you into sex, then yeah, that’s dysfunctional. It’s a word like “people”: I tried to get through to you, but your people wouldn’t let me. I think that’s such a lazy word, but it’s a word people like to use. On readers who say that his family is dysfunctional: It was learning to trust myself a little bit more. As time passed I could feel people listening, so you don’t have to elbow them in the ribs at the end of every paragraph. But what would happen if I went without it? At the beginning I wasn’t confident that anyone would be listening unless they were laughing. This week on The Maris Review, David Sedaris joins Maris Kreizman to discuss his latest book, The Best of Me, out now from Little Brown.Īs I went on tour and time passed, I thought, okay, I know I can get a laugh there.

David sedaris the best of me review