Me Talk Pretty One Day - Softcover

Sedaris, David

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316777218 ISBN 13: 9780316777216

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2001

Synopsis

David Sedaris's new collection tells a most unconventional life story. It begins with a North Carolina childhood filled with speech therapy classes and unwanted guitar lessons taught by a midget. From budding performance artist to writing teacher in Chicago, his career leads him to New York and eventually, of all places, France. Arriving a "spooky man-child" capable of communicating only through nouns, he is led ever deeper into cultural confusion. Sedaris brings a view and a voice like no other -- "Original, acid, and wild". said the L.A. Times -- to every unforgettable encounter.

About this title

Review

David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of Santaland Diaries a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's department store. Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path and his move with his lover to France.

Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves", he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God", says one. "Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber", says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox man whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mother and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests".

Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with "s" sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong--"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match". As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode. It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. --Tim Appelo

Review

Still keeps me company like a party guest who's been asked to spend the night...His essays about living in Paris are full of piss and vinegar and achingly funny. (Armistead Maupin)

Audaciously combining memoir, essay, and what has to be fiction, this fourth collection of short pieces offers pleasures normally to be found only in the best novels and the rare standup act that is actually funny. (THE NEW YORKER)

He is, simply, very funny... refusing to find anything an unfit subject for humour. (SUNDAY TIMES)

A sophisticatedly funny take on modern life. Treat yourself to this book. (IRISH TIMES)

Edition details

• Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0316777218
• ISBN 13: 9780316777216
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 272