Short stories and essays by an apartment cleaner and a popular commentator for National Public Radio highlight the absurd behavior of modern Americans, such as the suburban dad who saves money by performing surgery at home. Reprint. 25,000 first printing.
Book Details
ISBN 10: 0316779423 ISBN 13: 9780316779425
208 pages. First Published:6/1/1994 List Price:14.99 FREE to rent with membership
So I feel compelled to write a review. This book is absurd. It is perverse. It sometimes is uncomfortable to read. I didn't love it the first time I read it and it has grown on me like a fungus. I certainly understand why lots and lots of people don't like it but I would like to impress on those who are reading the reviews that the book is not BAD, just a little unpolished. It seems that the speaker is a chain-smoking, neurotic, self-absorbed, outcast whose mind can never slow down. And these are those 3 am rants that pop up in his brain. Any they are funny, in a really dark way.
Like the other Sedaris books I've read, this one was at times laugh-out-loud funny. Especially the fictional account of the author's gay love affairs with the people most likely to take offense at being included in such a story: Mike Tyson, Charlton Heston, Bruce Springsteen, etc. The essays and stories in the middle weren't as funny, though, and overall this isn't his best book.
