John Freeman

American humorists often make a Faustian bargain with their personal lives. After "Portnoy's Complaint," Philip Roth became the punchline to a thousand and one masturbation jokes. After Saturday Night Live, Steve Martin could scarcely walk the streets without being told he was a wild-and-crazy guy.

David Sedaris isn't nearly as lewd as Roth nor is he as silly as Martin, but when he gets on stage, chances are people think they know him, too. And for good reason. Over the past ten years, Sedaris has spun one amusing tale after another about growing up gay in North Carolina, the son of a chain-smoking mother and a father who loved the idea of an honest day's work.

Not surprisingly, the Sedaris clan forms the vivid, aching center of his most recent collection of essays, "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim," a #1 New York Times bestseller, just released in paperback.

I recently spoke to Sedaris over the phone from Paris, where he spends time when not making people pee their pants with laughter. As it turns out, there's a great deal of craft to being funny. His greatest achievement is keeping that hidden from us.

I just noticed you'll be on the road in a different city for almost two months. Is that par for the course?

I tend to be on the road about five months out of the year, yes.

Do you notice any difference between what people expect out of a reading between say America and other countries?

Well, the first time I went to Germany I went with the guy who translated my book. We would show up somewhere, and I would say, "How long will this take? And he'd say `a bottle.' And he then drank an entire fifth of whiskey during the reading. He read for three-and-a-half hours.

When you go on tour, I understand you sometimes read new material, often diaries. Does this help you revise?

Yes, of course. On the tour I just returned from, I started with nine stories--and I'd read them out loud, and a couple of them I thought, `I'll just throw those away.' Others I was able to improve. It helps when the editor asks me to cut something, if I can say, `Well, for a fact, that gets my biggest laugh.'

A lot of your stories come out of memory or your family life. Do you ever worry you will run out of material?

No, often Ira Glass [at "This American Life"] will have a show and it will be about a particular theme, and he'll ask me, do you have something about this or that? And I will recall something. Initially, the obvious things of my life jumped out: hitchhiking with a quadriplegic--that was one of the first things I wrote about, just because it was so hard to believe, and then there are smaller things. Oftentimes, I just need an assignment.

Are you working on anything right now?

Right now I have to write something about libraries, for the ALA [American Library Association]. So I'm writing about how my mom used to take us and drop us off at the local branch. On one of these days, I went into the bathroom and I walked in on two men having sex. And that's something I had never seen before in life. There were no books about homosexuals at the time either, remember. So every time I felt alone with this feeling, I'd think, `Oh, but there are those two guys from the library, too.' It was probably the best thing I ever learned at the library.

I guess we'll have to see if the ALA shares that feeling. Does your family ever get embarrassed by anything you write?

Well, it's not like they don't know I'm going to publish it. I often show them. But one thing no one in my family ever banked on was being so widely known. My older sister goes to a party now, and people say `I know all about you.' And they don't know her. I never imagined people would call at two o' clock in the morning. It doesn't bother me, I signed up for this. But my brothers and sisters...

The way you tell stories about your family seems so casual, but judging by the selections you put in your recent anthology ["Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules"], your influences are pretty literary.

I think some people read humorists and they don't assume you made a decision--that you chose one word over another for a specific reason. But the way I look at it, if people come out to hear me, I don't really care. If I am looking for a book to read, though, I'll probably choose something like these stories by Flannery O'Connor or Patricia Highsmith or Francine Prose. I'd rather read something that leaves me creepy and shaken up--rather than laughing.

It's interesting, because aside from Prose, those other writers were writing at times when certain things couldn't be said. Are there things you don't write about?

Well, I don't write about sex--that would be embarrassing to me. The rest of it I can do. Something I've discovered is that if something really embarrassing happened to you, the same thing happened to seventy percent of the world.

I was wondering why your story about getting a boil in your bum crack was so funny...

Actually, that thing came back three times--and it finally popped on an airplane.

You must get all kinds of advice.

Yeah, I learned it was called a pie-addle cyst. I've had so many people come and give me advice on that. On the last trip I wanted some stories about monkeys, a couple of times I made the mistake of saying, "If you have a story about a monkey I want to hear it."

I'm not even going to ask.

David Sedaris reads at Barnes & Noble, Old Orchard, Skokie, on June 3 and at Anderson's Bookstore, Naperville, on June 4.

(2005-05-31)

Also by John Freeman

Nonfiction Review
On April 26, 1986, an explosion in Chernobyl caused the worst nuclear accident in history. Although only thirty-one people died, thanks to the Soviet Union's policy of secrecy we will never know the true cost. Unknown thousands were born with birth defects, and many more from the tiny country of Belarus remain haunted by memories of that day. Svetlana Alexievich's "Voices from Chernobyl" is the first book to chronicle their stories
(2005-05-10)

Versatility
The Hubba-Bubba pink cover art on her new book notwithstanding, Camille Paglia is courting a lower profile these days
(2005-05-10)

Fiction Review
Between 1902 and 1905, Henry James published three of the 20th century's finest novels: "Wings of the Dove," "The Ambassadors" and "The Golden Bowl." Ten years prior, however, James was in a rut and hardly writing
(2005-04-26)

Fiction Review
A private detective fueled with booze and soused by desire falls for a dangerous dame in Kevin Young's new book, "Black Maria," a noir in verse that will give Raymond Chandler's best a run for its money
(2005-04-12)

Fiction Review
(2005-03-08)

Nonfiction Review
(2005-02-22)

Fiction Review
(2005-02-08)

Nonfiction Review
(2004-12-21)

Poetry Review
(2004-12-07)

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