Millions of sane adults clamor to be Engulfed in Flames
David Sedaris brings more of the same ... and we couldn’t be happier
By Dana Stewart
Published: June 16th, 2008 | 3:25pm
David Sedaris has become an institution. The kind of thing where, if you haven’t already heard of him, it’s because you rarely read The New Yorker and have never heard This American Life, and probably wouldn’t be interested in his work anyway. For those of us who have been familiar (read: obsessed) with him, a new Sedaris book is like finding an episode of your favorite old TV show that was canceled. It doesn’t matter what the episode is about. Because it’s new, it’s thrilling simply because you haven’t seen it yet.
In the case of Sedaris’ latest collection of nonfiction essays, When You Are Engulfed In Flames, only two of the 22 essays are previously unpublished, about half of which I've heard on This American Life. But the book is new. It’s got a new cover and title, and there’s a recent color picture of Mr. Sedaris on the back flap. For that reason alone, When You Are Engulfed In Flames is worth the $26.
In his first few collections of essays (this being his sixth), Sedaris pretty much exhausted his memories of early adulthood, adolescence, and childhood. That leaves him with the present, which he fully admits to being that of an “insufferable snob.” Readers will remain sympathetic to Sedaris’ fascinations (dead bodies, the insane or just awkward, arachnology), but his reality (jetting from apartment to apartment, the real conditions of flying business class, spending $23,000 to quit smoking) can be a bit of a turn-off. As Sedaris puts it: “When New York banned smoking in restaurants, I stopped eating out. When they banned it in the workplace, I quit working, and when they raised the price of cigarettes to $7 a pack, I gathered all my stuff together and went to France.”
Critics have bemoaned the lack of Sedaris’ family stories in his new work, but there are a few precious appearances of his late chain-smoking mother, brash Greek father, and his brothers and sisters. Venus Zine’s favorite Sedaris character, his sister Amy, has a great scene in the book’s lynchpin, “The Smoking Section.” In it, Sedaris describes how he went from being a decades-old, pack-and-a-half a day smoker to someone who stays in “nonsmoking” hotel rooms. It was suggested that the best way to quit smoking was to change your entire environment, moving if possible; all it took was $23,000, three months in Japan with his partner, Hugh, and he was cured. Ever the helpful sister, Amy tried to improve his Japanese before the trip: “‘Say ‘Goodness, how fat I’ve become! Can you believe how much weight I’ve gained since I quit smoking?’”
The most memorable characters in Engulfed, however, are the unbelievable people Sedaris has lived with, either by a somewhat questionable choice or coincidence. These people — usually batshit crazy, racist older ladies like the ones in This Old House and That’s Amore — are so remarkable that the question has been raised if he’s simply making it all up. As he said on NPR’s Fresh Air in May 2008, “I’m an exaggerator, I exaggerate about everything,” which he made clear is different than lying.
When You Are Engulfed In Flames may not be Sedaris’ best book, but it is necessarily his most mature. He has stopped smoking, drinking, and doing drugs. He wonders what good he is to the world or to his loved ones. Really, he’s just like the rest of us, and it’s why we don’t care that he’s an “insufferable snob.” We just hope he keeps writing.
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ABOUT THE BOOK
When You Are Engulfed in Flames (Little, Brown)
By David Sedaris
323 pages
$25.99
Issue #28
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