posted on 02 Feb 2022

The Best Of Me by David Sedaris

This collection of short essays, fictions and musings constitutes Sedaris’ own selection of what he considers his best work. For Sedaris fans there’s plenty here that will be familiar – certainly in tone if not in content – and there are also one or two rather surprising inclusions (‘Glen’s Homophobia Newsletter Vol3, No2’ for example) that I really didn’t warm to at all.

I find myself in a constant emotional battle whenever I pick up a collection of prose from Sedaris because I’m only ever really comfortable with it when my internal reading voice can adopt his voice and the delivery style of his radio pieces. I can never quite escape the feeling that these are always performance pieces and somehow better enjoyed when read aloud. I think that this is because listening to Sedaris read his material you are aware of just how much of the meaning and incisiveness hinges on the subtle ( and not-so-subtle) inflections he’s able to add to the text as an intangible extra dimension.

Selfishness and emotional brutality mixed with a sort of naïve innocence and shocked wonder over the follies and foibles of humanity are important elements of the Sedaris persona and all of these are sharpened and given extra dimension by the timing and delivery of the spoken word.

That’s not to say there’s not great fun to be had reading many of the pieces included here. Once again it’s the tales of his extraordinary family – including at times his partner, Hugh – that end up taking centre stage. In his introduction he rather bridles at the frequently used description of the Sedarises as ‘dysfunctional’ and he insists that whilst he may paint a picture of colourful eccentricity, this is just the nature of families and does nothing to reduce his affection for them – which is indeed always apparent. The genuine tragedies in the family – like his sister’s mental ill-health and suicide - are written about sensitively and with deep-rooted empathy.

The tales of family life are, on the whole, great fun but I enjoy Sedaris most when he’s most bewildered by the world outside and the utter crass stupidity he witnesses other people engaged in. He’s a great curator of the overheard conversation or the senseless act but he’s also savvy enough to realise he doesn’t stand above the fray – he too is a player in the madhouse.

This collection can be read from cover to cover, as I did, and keep you coming back for more but it is also a browser’s delight – one you can pick up between other reads and find satisfaction in reading just two or three of the shorter pieces.

Having been a devotee of the radio pieces he has done for BBC Radio 4, I now find it impossible not to have his voice in my head as I read anything he’s written and I’m not sure whether that’s a strength or a weakness. But, on the whole, I can’t help but feel that for anyone who might pick up this book without prior knowledge of the author, they might be best advised to go and listen to some of his pieces first because that’s the quickest way to ensure you get an idea of where the man is coming from.

Paperback editions and second hand hardbacks will cost you less than £10.

 

Terry Potter

February 2022