I had never read anything by David Sedaris, but my book club elected to discuss this collection of essays so I went ahead and read it.
It’s OK. There were a few things in this book that made me laugh out loud, but for the most part I didn’t find much funny in this book.
Most of the essays deal with Sedaris’s relationship with his father, who was a terrible person. He was a pervert who sexualized his own daughters, harassed just about every woman he encountered, treated restaurant workers like shit, and was a raging homophobe who cut David out of his will for being gay. He was probably super racist, too, but that doesn’t get addressed in this book.
However, David does grapple with his own racism in some of these essays. He mentions a couple instances in which he makes some assumptions based on race and is then forced to confront those assumptions. I’m glad he’s becoming aware of his biases, but I did think he patted himself on the back a little too much for doing so. Then again, maybe his self congratulations were tongue in cheek and I just missed it.
A number of essays in this book discuss David’s other relationships, and while he never overtly makes a connection between those relationships and his relationship with his father, I thought his other relationships did make much more sense after having learned about his dad.
For example, while David’s partner doesn’t sound nearly as difficult as his dad, he definitely has some quirks that can make him hard to live with.
David also made a comment early in the book about how he ”cannot bear to watch his sisters getting old” because “they were all such beauties.” I almost gave up on the book at that point, but after hearing about how his dad always prioritized beauty in women, I understood that David had internalized those priorities without realizing it.
One member of my book group wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume it’s because he doesn’t want to confront his sisters’ mortality. I think that’s being generous, especially given his comment about how “they used to be such beauties.”
At the same time, it was nice to see that he has such a strong relationship with his sisters, and another member of my book club gave David a lot of credit for that, so he has that going for him.