Hip radio comedy fans and theater folks who belong to the cult of Obie-winning playwright/performer David Sedaris must kill to get this book. These would be fans of the scaldingly snide Sedaris's hilariously described personal misadventures like The Santaland Diaries (a monologue about his work as an elf to a department store Santa) seen off-Broadway in 1997. In a series of similarly textured essays, Sedaris takes us along on his catastrophic detours through a nudist colony, a fruit-packing plant, his own childhood, and a dozen more of the world's little purgatories.
Last year, The New Republic accused Sedaris of “flubberizing the truth for comic effect”. Well, duh. Anyone who fell off their Barcalounger laughing at “Dinah the Christmas Whore” already knew that—and didn’t care. A+
