On The Maris Review podcast, David Sedaris discusses what it’s like to promote a book during a pandemic and an election, what he wears at his writing desk, and much more. He personally selected the essays included in his greatest hits collection, The Best of Me, and says readers won’t find many examples of his earliest work. “I just see somebody trying so desperately to be funny, it’s just embarrassing to me,” he explains. “I think that’s interesting, too, when somebody says, ‘I really liked that thing you wrote 30 years ago.’ It’s like, gosh, can’t you see the difference between what I wrote last year and what I wrote 30 years ago? And a lot of people can’t. They can’t see the difference. But you know, they’re looking at the story, they’re not looking at the words that make up the story, they’re not noticing that a sentence has rhythm or doesn’t have rhythm. They’re in it for the story.” At the end of his conversation with host Maris Kreizman, Sedaris recommends three books: Wells Tower’s Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned, Halle Butler’s The New Me, and Blake Bailey’s The Splendid Things We Planned.
David Sedaris Is Not Loving His Early Work
Good Movie News
This is exciting: Roxane Gay’s debut novel An Untamed State is headed for the screen. Gina Prince-Bythewood will direct and Gugu Mbatha-Raw will star in the film adaptation of Gay’s novel, which tells the story of a Haitian-American woman captured for ransom in front of her husband and child. Check out this Millions review of the book to get a better sense of just how great it is.
Daniel Orozco’s Orientation
Daniel Orozco‘s Orientation collects many of his short stories in one attractive volume. Released last May, the collection features the classic story “Orientation” (Scribd) as well as newer ones such as “Shakers” (Scribd). It garnered enough hype to land him on the long list for this year’s Frank O’Connor Award.
One comment:
Add Your Comment: Cancel reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Another Type of Lyric Essay
Specter Magazine is calling for “hip-hop inspired piece[s] of Creative Non-Fiction,” and, wisely, they know that the best way to inspire participation is with a Beanie Sigal and Jay-Z track.
Just In Time For Valentine’s Weekend
Katia Grubisic reviews The Poetry of Sex, which is Penguin’s new “carnal compilation” covering everything “from love-making to hay-rolling to cuckolding.”
Two Degrees of Fame
The copy of Shakespeare’s works disguised as a Hindu religious text and read by imprisoned Nelson Mandela will go on display for this first time later this summer.
How can a writer’s response to a reader saying “I really liked that thing you wrote 30 years ago.” be “It’s like, gosh, can’t you see the difference between what I wrote last year and what I wrote 30 years ago?” Why would a writer think that a reader would lie to them about what works by the writer they like best?
I think that reader very likely DOES see a difference between what the writer wrote last year and what they wrote 30 years. And, as they say in so many words, they like what the writer wrote 30 years ago. By choosing not to discuss the new work, they admit that they like the old writing BETTER than the new writing.
David Sedaris may indeed be writing “better” than he did 30 years ago. But what readers want may not be “better” writing, rather they may want to read more of what they already know they like.
I often thought Sedaris was trying too hard to be funny in his early work, so I stopped reading after a while. If Sedaris thinks he’s doing something different in his more recent work, maybe I will like it more than his early writing. I’ll look around for some.
But I fully understand readers who may want more of the same from him. And I sort of wonder why he doesn’t.