Stop, Drop, and Roll
David Sedaris’ new book isn’t as funny as his others, but he is getting better as a storyteller.
By Kim Gengler
July 28, 2008
Some middle-aged men deal with their midlife crisis by spending money on a gas-guzzling car. David Sedaris deals with it by writing another book of essays. When You Are Engulfed in Flames reflects Sedaris’ obsession with death. In the essay “Monster Mash,” he says, “Even as a child I was fascinated by death, not in a spiritual sense, but in an aesthetic one.” Later, he says his interest has evolved from romanticizing his own funeral to understanding he will die. Yet, Sedaris doesn’t get deep or metaphysical about death and the meaning of life—that’s not his style.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames isn’t as funny as his earlier books. Sedaris made a fortune off of his upbringing and family diatribes. Now his stories are about his cozy life as a writer and lecturer. Sedaris’ mid-life crisis fails to be as funny as his formative years because, let’s be honest, he has it pretty good now. Describing a flight sitting in business class will never be as comical as describing one sitting in coach. Spending $20,000 to quit smoking is terribly cushy. As one turns the pages, there are fewer and fewer laugh-out-loud moments. Many of the essays are recycled—of the book’s 22 essays, 16 were previously published in The New Yorker. Even though some of these reused scenarios result in a chortle, they don’t compare to the hilarious stories about Sedaris’ speech impediment or his experience trying to hide an erection at a sixth-grade slumber party. Sedaris still manages to weave in some poignant and sad moments, but he has become less of a humorist and more of a storyteller.
Among other things, the book tells his experience with quitting smoking in Tokyo, visiting a medical examiner’s office for an Esquire assignment, and befriending the spiders that occupy his country home in Normandy, France. Sedaris still commands details like a master: He describes his butt as “a rusted coin slot,” for example.
Likewise, in the affecting the essay “Memento Mori,” Sedaris has an ongoing conversation about death with the skeleton he bought for his partner, Hugh Hamrick. This essay, like many of the others found in When You Are Engulfed in Flames, highlights Sedaris’ neuroses and imagination—characteristics of modern storytellers we love (think Chuck Palahniuk and Kurt Vonnegut). In “Memento Mori” the skeleton repeats the phrase, “You are going to die,” over and over until Sedaris comically cracks and begs the skeleton to say something else.
Sedaris has other things to talk about besides death. Although When You Are Engulfed in Flames is clearly about getting older, it is also about Sedaris’ relationship with Hamrick. Unlike his earlier works, When You are Engulfed in Flames rarely delves into Sedaris’ crazy upbringing and family, which has provided so much hilarious material. Instead Sedaris expounds upon his happy-homemaker partner, “He does these things that are somehow beyond faggy and seem better suited to some hardscrabble pioneer wife: making jam, say, or sewing bedroom curtains out of burlap.” Hamrick is a foil for Sedaris in that Hamrick does anything and everything (like washing clothing in a river, opening the “icky mail” and actually reading it, and buying the couple’s apartments), while Sedaris shies, no hides, from domestic and financial tasks and responsibilities.
In “Keeping Up” Sedaris describes taking trips with Hamrick and how he’s always trailing his partner, who walks much faster. Hugh will disappear into a crowd, abandoning Sedaris. But when Sedaris compares his partner to himself, Hemrick fairs much better than Sedaris: “If Hugh is asked directions to the nearest Citibank, I am asked directions to the nearest plasma bank.” That’s part of Sedaris’ charm as a writer—he is self-deprecating yet totally willing to forgive his own transgressions and flaws in self-indulgent rants.
Sedaris is trying to grow as a humorist and storyteller by expanding his subject matter.
When You Are Engulfed in Flames could have been gorged with humor because midlife crises breed ridiculous behavior and self-deprecation that Sedaris easily masters. Instead Sedaris offers more bittersweet stories, like the one about his cantankerous neighbor Helen. These types of stories aren’t new to his cannon but do take the place of more humorous essays. This doesn’t mean the book isn’t worth reading—it is. Sedaris still entertains, makes the reader laugh, and presents situations that make us think. The mark of a good storyteller is someone who takes us through all emotions as we read, and that’s certainly the case in When You Are in Engulfed in Flames. Besides, when it comes to dealing with a midlife crisis, the book is much cheaper than a Porsche Carrera.
Kim Gengler is an account coordinator at Connecting Point Communications and blogger for The Whole 9. She graduated from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities in 2006.
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I am not exactly inspired by this review to read the stories of mid-life crisis Mr. Sedaris writes about in his new publication, but you have made me curious, somewhat anyway, to read his earlier works.
— Iago - Aug 6, 03:06 AM - #