So, I did a Google search for “David Sedaris and drinking games” and no relevant hits appeared. What a missed opportunity. If you took a drink every time he made a self-depreciating comment about his looks, dissed his father, or cussed, you would be passed out in 47 minutes. If you added shots each time, you read the word “Greek” or “gay,” you would die of blood alcohol poisoning. If you took a drink every time, he introduced something novel or challenging into his writing, you would be a very sober reader.
Most likely the David Sedaris drinking game won’t take off, but as parent, I probably shouldn’t be role modeling the practice of doing shots while reading anyway. Instead, I’ll just play my new favorite David Sedaris game: Guess which essays were published in the New Yorker? (With a name that catchy, try not to be jealous that you didn’t think of it first).
Most likely the David Sedaris drinking game won’t take off, but as parent, I probably shouldn’t be role modeling the practice of doing shots while reading anyway. Instead, I’ll just play my new favorite David Sedaris game: Guess which essays were published in the New Yorker? (With a name that catchy, try not to be jealous that you didn’t think of it first).
I originated this game while reading “This Old House” from When You Are Engulfed in Flames. The essay originally appeared in the New Yorker on July 9, 2007 and chronicles Sedaris’ wacky stay in a boarding house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. It is perfection from start to finish with fascinating supporting characters, great pacing, interesting plot twists, surprising revelations, humor, and tenderness. Finding all these elements in one Sedaris essay is highly unusual. Sedaris’ tales normally move rapidly from punch line to punch line with little plot development, flat characters and almost no use of traditional essay elements, which always leaves me yelling at the pages. His blatant disrespect of the humor essay as an art form doesn’t stop his books from appearing on the New York Times Best Sellers List and Library Journal’s The Books Most Borrowed in U.S. Libraries List, nor does it stop the overwrought comparisons of him to Mark Twain. Most book critics are not essay connoisseurs, so they might not distinguish between a humorist and essayist. Twain was the rare combination of humorist and an essayist. Sedaris' works fall short of earning him the moniker of an essayist, except when his writings appear in the New Yorker.
No matter if he is called an essayist, humorist, or memoirist, people are more interested in the veracity of his stories opposed to how the editing process changes or improves the quality of his work. In the essay, This American Lie, Alex Heard contends that Sedaris’ essays are not really truthful or all that personal. He insists that Sedaris is a fraud who creates fiction when the truth fails to be funny and exploits his family for laughs. Heard has made it his personal mission to fact check Sedaris' stories. What kind of stick do you have to have up your ass to even take on a project like that? Sedaris is not a journalist and is not obligated to follow any code of ethics other than his personal values. Sedaris has admitted repeatedly that his works are “realish” and he exaggerates for effect. Heard’s objection is not that exaggerates but that he embellishes his work too much for it to retain the label of non-fiction.
If there is a problem with the non-fiction and fiction distinction that is an issue for the Library of Congress to resolve, or individual libraries can re-catalog his items (which completes screws up OCLC records but that is a rant for another day). Sedaris is a humorist not a librarian, so Melvin Dewey is not his problem or a problem for the critics.
The problem for critics arises when Sedaris’ reputation goes from Great American Exaggerator to Great American Essayist. If this grand distinction is ever bestowed upon him, there should be an asterisk placed by his name because having your work polished by the editors of the New Yorker is like having Bobbi Brown as your make-up artist and Rachel Zoe as your stylist, they can make anyone look good.
