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Home > ATLarts > Archives > 2008 > June > 11 > Entry
Do we care if David Sedaris makes stuff up?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
David Sedaris has a new book out, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames,” which just jumped to No. 1 on Amazon’s best-seller list. It’s another collection of his hilarious essays, which combine autobiography, musings, and, apparently, some stretching of the truth.
The question before us: Does it matter?
Apparently it mattered to The New Republic, which ran a long article recently titled “This American Lie” (Sedaris sometimes reads his essays on an NPR show called “This American Life”). Writer Alex Heard listed numerous cases where Sedaris wrote stuff that turned out not to be true, and concluded, “I do think Sedaris exaggerates too much for a writer using a nonfiction label.”
Sedaris readily admits that he exaggerates for effect. In his new book, an author’s note calls the essays “realish.” He maintains he averages about 97 percent true and 3 percent exaggeration. Which I have to admit is better than my batting average talking to bosses, co-workers and friends on any given day.
I was a big Sedaris fan before he was a No. 1 guy, and I’ve always figured that some of what he wrote had to be exaggerated, and didn’t much care. But we are certainly in an era when memoirists are fair game for not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Anyone care to weigh in on David Sedaris and his truthiness, or lack thereof?
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment | Categories: Books
Comments
By jimbo
June 11, 2008 9:30 AM | Link to this
I was born in Texas, we’re (in)famous for exaggeration, so I can’t fault the guy.
By Sara
June 11, 2008 10:16 AM | Link to this
it’s his interpretation of the events unique to his life we find most interesting…and in this interpretation lies the humor. few can take a memory of a bad baby-sitter and turn it into a story that my friends and i will quote until we die. “it’s not that she thought she was better than us, but that she thought she was as good as us…”
i don’t know if all the accounts are described exactly as they happened 30 years ago. i do know that it’s funny and that is the point. thank david for his ability to spin a good story and see humor in craziness…otherwise most of his stories would seem dreadfully close to plain life.
you know what i think is really funny? sometimes we seem less concerned that media interprets stories they pass on as truth than if a humorist adds a humorous editorial detail to his book. not funny ha-ha i admit, just funny strange.
By Maria
June 11, 2008 10:54 AM | Link to this
I read “This American Lie” when it was published, and I remember thinking that Alex Heard really needed to improve his critical reading skills, as well as do a bit of thinking as to what it means to be a humor writer versus a typical memoirist. Exaggeration is at the heart of humor; it’s just plain funnier to say that someone was the biggest / loudest / craziest person you’ve ever met. Beyond that, no memoirist, humorist, stand-up comedian, etc. can remember every moment and every spoken word in the given situation he’s mining for his work. You have to, shall we say, massage real life to make it funny, and to make it art. I’ve written personal essays, as well as hundreds and hundreds of blog entries over the years (about me, and about people I know, which is not the wisest idea I ever had), and you take out all the uhs and ums and “I mean”s from dialogue and change the order of some things to make the story the most readable and entertaining version of real life possible.
Actually, sometimes I wish Sedaris would exaggerate a little more than he does. I find his essays about his present-day life in Paris to be remarkably dull compared to his stories about his childhood and his family. My favorites are “Ashes,” “12 Moments in the Life of the Artist,” “The Ship Shape,” and “Repeat After Me.”
By Thomas
June 11, 2008 3:23 PM | Link to this
Sedaris is an essayist. He’s not a diarist or some kind of latter day Samuel Pepys. And as such, he gets to take his poetic license and wield it as he sees fit, meaning that these many tales of youth misspent and of adulthood observed need only stick to the exact facts at hand when and where needed.
His best stories are those that sound like something you’d hear from the friend of a friend in the latter hours of a really good party, after most folks have gone home or fallen asleep. And at that point, it really doesn’t matter if someone is quoted exactly or if a date is cited precisely, because the quality of the story is what keeps your attention.
And frankly, I don’t care if Mr Mancini (the midget guitar instructor) is real or not. “Grab her by the neck and make her holler!” is funny either way.