Saturday, November 7, 2009

Naked by David Sedaris

From Amazon's product description: Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.

David Sedaris does it again - great laugh out loud stories. I enjoyed this book more than the last one I read, Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim, it seems like this one had more of his family in it and they are one of the strangest/funniest groups you've ever met. This one had an extra long story or two in the second half; I find that those longer ones drag a bit for me - I like it short and snappy! Although, one of the longer stories was a pages long essay on David's excursion to a nudist park for a week's vacation that kept me entertained all the way through! (I have to venture a guess that is where the title came from.) I can relate to so many of David's childhood memories - reading racy books while babysitting - somewhat fearful that the people would come home and catch you, dreaming that perhaps you are really royalty that has been placed in the wrong family by mistake, and the chapter on David's tics made me think of Tween who has displayed tics in the past although not to the "light switch licking" extent that Sedaris does. David's twisted take on his suburban chidlhood is a delightful read.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've got this one on my TBR list. I am pretty sure the only Sedaris I've read is Holidays on Ice.

hokgardner said...

If you like Naked, you should read "Me Talk Pretty One Day." It's my favorite of all his books. I laugh out loud every time I read it.

bermudaonion said...

I love David Sedaris' humor. I've listened to two of his books and have several others in my TBR pile. I'm wondering if I'll enjoy them as much without hearing his voice.