Reviews provided by Syndetics
Library Journal Review
More twisted humor-and a 25-city tour. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publishers Weekly Review
In his latest collection, Sedaris has found his heart. This is not to suggest that the author of Me Talk Pretty One Day and other bestselling books has lost his edge. The 27 essays here (many previously published in Esquire, G.Q. or the New Yorker, or broadcast on NPR's This American Life) include his best and funniest writing yet. Here is Sedaris's family in all its odd glory. Here is his father dragging his mortified son over to the home of one of the most popular boys in school, a boy possessed of "an uncanny ability to please people," demanding that the boy's parents pay for the root canal that Sedaris underwent after the boy hit him in the mouth with a rock. Here is his oldest sister, Lisa, imploring him to keep her beloved Amazon parrot out of a proposed movie based on his writing. (" `Will I have to be fat in the movie?' she asked.") Here is his mother, his muse, locking the kids out of the house after one snow day too many, playing the wry, brilliant commentator on his life until her untimely death from cancer. His mother emerges as one of the most poignant and original female characters in contemporary literature. She balances bitter and sweet, tart and rich-and so does Sedaris, because this is what life is like. "You should look at yourself," his mother says in one piece, as young Sedaris crams Halloween candy into his mouth rather than share it. He does what she says and then some, and what emerges is the deepest kind of humor, the human comedy. Author tour. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
School Library Journal Review
Adult/High School-This lighthearted follow-up to Me Talk Pretty One Day (Little, Brown, 2000) contains a selection of personal essays. Some of the pieces appeared previously in magazines or on the NPR radio program This American Life. The first half of the collection focuses on Sedaris's childhood, including his relationship with his supportive mother and "man's man" of a father. Family vacations, snow days from school, and parental conflicts are all rendered in a comic style. Several of the pieces highlight the author's growing up with the knowledge that he is gay. He writes about the mixture of feelings he experienced in a real but funny manner. The second half moves Sedaris into adulthood. Although still dealing chiefly with his family, the focus shifts to his brother and sisters. From Tiffany, who collects and sells junk right from her house, to macho, floor-sanding Paul, Sedaris sets up a family dynamic that's sometimes odd, sometimes sad, but always funny. A handful of pieces include or refer to his life partner, Hugh. Whether it's apartment searching in "Possession" or the clash of personalities in "A Can of Worms," it's refreshing to see a writer portray a gay relationship that's committed and monogamous. Although not as unified as his other books, this collection serves as a touching reminder of how odd, funny, and unique our lives really are.-Matthew L. Moffett, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Booklist Review
Sedaris' piquant essays are as meticulously honed and precisely timed as the best stand-up comic routines, which is, of course, what they are. A National Public Radio star, the author of five best-sellers, including Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000) , and a hall-filling performer, Sedaris--openly gay, nervy as a tightrope walker, sharply hilarious, teasingly misanthropic yet genuinely compassionate--has a unique ability to supply exactly the right details to bring every funny, awkward, ludicrous, painful, horrible real-life moment into harrowingly crisp focus. But given all that he has already revealed about his childhood, family, and bizarre adventures, one wonders how he can continue to mine his life to create fresh and arresting essays, and, indeed, a few pieces do feel strained. It stretches one's credulity, for instance, to envision young Sedaris panhandling or taking erotic advantage of a strip poker game. But when he muses over his parents' slumlord phase, remembers a rich aunt and a neglected nine-year-old girl, and profiles his over-the-top brother, he is mesmerizing, and his ability to make the reader gasp, laugh out loud, or grow teary is undiminished. At the same time, there's an increased edginess to his work, reminding readers that beneath the brio, Sedaris, gifted connoisseur of the absurd, is deadly serious. --Donna Seaman Copyright 2004 Booklist
Kirkus Book Review
Known for his self-deprecating wit and the harmlessly eccentric antics of his family, Sedaris (Me Talk Pretty One Day, 2000, etc.) can also pinch until it hurts in this collection of autobiographical vignettes. Once again we are treated to the author's gift for deadpan humor, especially when poking fun at his family and neighbors. He draws some of the material from his youth, like the portrait of the folks across the street who didn't own a TV ("What must it be like to be so ignorant and alone?" he wonders) and went trick-or-treating on November first. Or the story of the time his mother, after a fifth snow day in a row, chucked all the Sedaris kids out the door and locked it. To get back in, the older kids devised a plan wherein the youngest, affection-hungry Tiffany, would be hit by a car: "Her eagerness to please is absolute and naked. When we ask her to lie in the middle of the street, her only question was 'Where?' " Some of the tales cover more recent incidents, such as his sister's retrieval of a turkey from a garbage can; when Sedaris beards her about it, she responds, "Listen to you. If it didn't come from Balducci's, if it wasn't raised on polenta and wild baby acorns, it has to be dangerous." But family members' square-peggedness is more than a little pathetic, and the fact that they are fodder for his stories doesn't sit easy with Sedaris. He'll quip, "Your life, your privacy, your occasional sorrow--it's not like you're going to do anything with it," as guilt pokes its nose around the corner of the page. Then he'll hitch himself up and lacerate them once again, but not without affection even when the sting is strongest. Besides, his favorite target is himself: his obsessive-compulsiveness and his own membership in this company of oddfellows. Sedaris's sense of life's absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of both. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
TextPublication details: Boston : Little, Brown, c2004.Edition: 1st edDescription: 257 p. ; 22 cmISBN: