Review: David Sedaris’ THE BEST OF ME
The Book: The Best of Me by David Sedaris
The Blurb: For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre . . . Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. In these stories, Sedaris shops for rare taxidermy, hitchhikes with a lady quadriplegic, and spits a lozenge into a fellow traveler’s lap. He drowns a mouse in a bucket, struggles to say “give it to me” in five languages, and hand-feeds a carnivorous bird.
Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called “the funniest man alive” (Time Out New York), The Best of Me spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing—quite often at himself—and invites readers deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time. (blurb courtesy of GoodReads)
The Review:
I’ve never been a huge fan of memoir. More often than not I find one story blends hypnotically into the next in an unchanging monotony of tone and theme. However, I have always loved David Sedaris’ memoirs.
This recent ‘best of’ collection includes one scene that explained for me why his stories work so much better than others I’ve read. In that story, Sedaris describes sitting as a child with his mother and five siblings around the kitchen table. Each child told stories from their day. His mother listened, then offered suggestions on which bits to cut, which bits to lead with, and how to punch the ending in order to get future listeners eating out of their hands.
Apparently, from childhood, Sedaris was schooled in verbal storytelling and it shows. Sedaris stories feel like something you’d want told out loud over drinks in a crowd of friends. They are meaningful without the meaning-making being forced. They are completely relatable and yet wholly unexpected. They share enough without sharing too much.
Everyone has a few favorite party stories they are ready to tell whenever the right moment comes up. In the same way, Sedaris does not try to organize his unique life into one narrative arc. He captures life as it is; a weird collection of details, some significant some seemingly inconsequential but all varied. In one story he might take on homophobia. In the next, he might wax philosophical about culottes. At each end of the spectrum, he finds new levels of humor and meaning. This variety makes Sedaris memoirs anything but monotonous.
Pick up a copy on Amazon or Indiebound.
Up Next On Betsy’s To Be Read Shelf: Agatha Arch Is Afraid of Everything by Kristin Bair
