ShareThisBy WAYNE BLEDSOE
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
It's easy to feel like you know David Sedaris before he ever picks up the phone. He's the North Carolina junior-high-school student so affected by a drama presentation that he insisted on speaking to his family in nothing but Elizabethan English for weeks.
He's the obsessive-compulsive boy who could not keep himself from licking doorknobs and light switches and pressing his nose against things until it drove his mother and teachers to drink _ at least when they were talking about him.
He's the grown man who was hired to be an elf at Macy's, the American in Paris who was immediately pegged by American tourists as a non-English-speaking French mugger and the teenage hitchhiker who suddenly realized that getting in a car with a stranger is not such a good idea after all.
Sedaris, his parents, his siblings and his partner, Hugh, all seem real and familiar in a Sedaris essay or monologue. But if fans think they've really gotten to know Sedaris, they may be wrong.
"I think I just give the illusion of revealing myself," says Sedaris in a phone call from Paris.
"I think the real me is in my diary and I would never let anyone ever get their hands on that, because that's a person I work very, very hard to keep hidden."
The Sedaris that isn't hidden moved with his family from New York to Raleigh, N.C., in 1962. It was easy to feel like an outsider.
"Back then, you would be beat up for being a Yankee," says Sedaris. "People would identify themselves as 'Rebels.' And I thought, 'My God, they're still fighting the Civil War.' When you win, you don't think about the war anymore."
Yet, however much of an outsider Sedaris may have seemed growing up, he has become a universal figure. His books ("Barrel Fever," "Holidays on Ice," "Naked," "Me Talk Pretty Someday" and "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim") and stories have been translated into 24 languages. On a recent book tour, he spent more than six hours autographing books at a stop in the Philippines.
Sedaris' early fame came from reading his "Santaland Diaries," his Macy's elf account, on National Public Radio. He became a frequent contributor to NPR's "This American Life," and his stories began appearing in prominent magazines.
The Sedaris family _ David's parents, sisters Lisa, Gretchen, Amy and Tiffany and brother Paul _ often figures into David's stories. While the family members' idiosyncrasies can be hilarious, Sedaris makes sure not to hurt his subjects. He, in fact, lets family members veto things that they might be uncomfortable with. Amy (actress Amy Sedaris) and his brother (who runs a flooring company in Raleigh) are frequent subjects.
"If I'm writing a story about my sister, I'm going to make her look good and give her the good lines," says Sedaris.
And Paul, whose foul mouth and sweet nature have given David some of his most hilarious stories, loves to be written about.
"I find I prefer reading about my brother in the South because in the South, people can recognize that sweetness," says Sedaris. "In other parts of the country, they just think, 'Oh, he's a foulmouthed redneck.' ... In the South, everyone's got a brother or a cousin like Paul."
Sedaris says that when he's writing a piece, he always keeps in mind how a story will sound read out loud. He doesn't give himself all the credit for the audience's reaction.
"I think if people buy a ticket and they get a baby sitter and get a little bit dressed up, they're gonna try really hard to have a good time," he says.
Yet, there's no doubt that Sedaris works hard to make his stories resonate:
"Two weeks ago, I put something in a story, and it made me laugh out loud at my desk, and then I got rid of it two days ago because I thought, 'You know, this looks like it's trying too hard to be funny.' "
And what audiences will find funny or be offended by is a mystery until Sedaris reads a new work for a crowd.
"If I go on this tour and nobody makes a sound throughout the whole story, then I'll probably go backstage afterwards and kill myself," says Sedaris, with a chuckle. "I so admire people who can get up and read serious things, because, to me, if the audience isn't making noise, I'm convinced that they're not listening."
