In my opinion, there is only one way to read this book, and that's with your ears. Sedaris' most recent collection of stories is an absolute gem that glows even brighter when narrated on compact disc by its author. Sedaris is a master of verbal pause and nuance, and his unique voice -- thin, reedy, and whimsically childlike despite the fact that he is now in his fifties -- bestows a gentle quality that softens his sharper observations and brings a smile to the listener's face even in the absence of obvious humor. Do yourself a favor and go audible on this one.
Sedaris' childlike voice notwithstanding, this book is his most mature collection of stories yet. He takes on some sobering subjects -- illness, death, the joys and burdens of monogamy, the unpredictable nature of life -- and treats them with a deepening sense of humanity that has always underpinned his humor, while making the listener laugh all the while -- an amazing feat, when you contemplate the subject matter.
Young writers, on the whole, tend to be more brash and judgmental than older ones, and the arc of their craft usually bends one of two ways: they become more prickly and acerbic in their later years, or they mellow with age and decide to make peace with humankind and all of its (and their) foibles. Sedaris has chosen the latter path, as best exemplified by one of my favorite stories in this collection: "The Understudy." In "The Understudy," David's parents go on an adult vacation and leave him and his young siblings in the care of Mrs. Peacock, an overweight, unkempt woman from "across the tracks" who proceeds to tend her young charges by sleeping all hours of the day in a darkened bedroom, downing every bottle of Coca Cola in the house, and occasionally cooking up a skillet of sloppy joes when the kids resort to howling in desperation (9 p.m.: "If y'all was hungry, why didn't you say nothing? I'm not a mind reader, you know"). Worst of all, she insists that the children take turns scratching her back with a long plastic rod that ends in a miniature, fingernailed "hand" resembling an arthritic monkey paw. They gag in disgust as she lays on the bed, stomach down, her tattered, soiled slip pulled down to her waist, sighing in ecstasy as they scrape the vile paw across her oily, pock-marked back. When one of them can't resist commenting on the hairs between her shoulders, she retorts "Y'all's got the same damn thing, only they ain't poked out yet."
Just at the point when Sedaris's caricature of Mrs. Peacock borders on merciless, he pivots. Mrs. Peacock packs the kids into the car and makes a trip to her house (the beloved back scratcher has been broken and must be replaced with a backup model). The siblings realize that Mrs. Peacock's house, an obvious shack to them, is a subject of great pride for her. The backyard garden is beautifully tended, albeit filled with plastic gewgaws and garden gnomes, and she cautions them not to touch her beloved doll collection ("They's my doll babies") as they enter the back door. She shows them her collection of miniatures, and points out two little troll dolls, each sitting in a house slipper by her bathroom, their hair combed back as if blown by a stiff wind: "See, it's like they's riding in boats!" Sedaris' ability to connect the listener with Mrs. Peacock's sense of individuality and self in the face of obvious poverty is powerful; he simultaneously portrays her as an object of comedic derision and a human being deserving of sincere compassion. I laughed until I had tears in my eyes while I listened to "The Understudy," and yet I'll never look at the denizens of Walmart again without wondering whether they, too, have their own version of a doll baby collection at home, or a carefully tended plant collection on their disintegrating back porch. Sedaris ends the story with an adult observation that Mrs. Peacock was probably clinically depressed the entire time she tended him and his siblings, thus the naps, poor hygiene, etc.
Several of Sedaris's stories involve severely dysfunctional people --an aging apartment neighbor with all the charm of a cornered badger, a disabled war veteran accused of molesting his grandchildren, a boarding house full of social outcasts -- but you never get the feeling that Sedaris would prefer a world without them. He even manages to be amazingly gentle and humorous in relating the potentially traumatic story of a middle-aged truck driver who picked up him up when he was a young hitchhiker and then proceeded to proposition him sexually while the truck flew down the road at 65 miles per hour (Sedaris escaped with his virginity). He's content with the rich adventure of a life that forces you to interact with the good and the bad, the tolerant and the hateful, the beautiful and the plain, and then gives you the gift of grace to smile at it all in the end, just as he smiles at his own strengths and weaknesses. How can you not like a person who is honest and self-deprecating enough to invite you to laugh with him at the fact that he once made use of a prosthetic buttocks to flush out his own flat rear end, abandoning it only when the summer heat, combined with latex, caused intolerable sweating?
There's an old saying that laughing is good for the heart. Sedaris brings new meaning to this saying with his humanist/humorist approach to the world. Spend a few hours with "When You Are Engulfed in Flames" over the next few weekends. You'll like what it does for you.
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