Sedaris

I've been ruminating over the David Sedaris kind of book for a while now. While I enjoyed his reading new stories, and I loved NAKED, I sat down and read his other works all in a row recently. His writer's voice is distinctive, his style charming and self-deprecating, but after reading his New Yorker piece about his sister's recent suicide, I can't help but wonder at the price paid for his acerbic wit and razor-like dissection of his family's foibles. It's one thing to tell tales on yourself, and quite another to hold your family up to ridicule.

Perhaps it's the Southerner in me, but waving dirty laundry from your family's wash seems quite tacky. Even trashy. Definitely not the behavior one expects from a boy raised in Raleigh.  The consequences within the family must be scary. Perhaps that's the plan - keep everyone riled up, and there's more fodder for the writer. I feel sorry for them all. And there's no way in heck I'll keep paying for Sedaris work.  So awful to be related to him. I feel sorry for them all.