For years, David Sedaris has written so many wry and sometimes wacky stories about his life that any longtime fan might certainly ask: C'mon, how much of this really happened?
So before you plunge into this new book's 22 essays — most republished from elsewhere — you might check out the author's note.
"The events described in these stories," it says, "are realish."
Huh?
"That's a good word," Sedaris told the Christian Science Monitor recently. "I guess I've always thought that if 97 percent of the story is true, then that's an acceptable formula."
So be forewarned. And then prepare to laugh. Whether these stories really meet the 97-percent benchmark or not, they're a pleasure to read and funnyish.
Some of these essays meander through time and topics like the streets of Venice, Italy, which Sedaris says were seemingly designed by ants. And some work better than others. His 2006 baccalaureate address at Princeton University, relating over-the-top stories about his life on campus, is just a little too silly ("Back then we were on a pass-fail system. . . . If you failed, you were burned alive on a pyre that's now the Transgender Studies Building").
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And the piece on smoking and trying to quit in Japan is just too long and flat.
But Sedaris fans will forgive him the occasional disappointment in this, his sixth book. And first-timers will see what has made him a best-selling humorist, if not a strict historian.
David Sedaris will be at the UA Bookstore on July 1.
Review
"When You Are Engulfed in Flames"
By David Sedaris (Little, Brown and Co., $25.99)
