David Sedaris's "most side splitting work to date" (Sarah Hepola, Austin Chronicle), Me Talk Pretty One Day is a collection of vignettes that transform somewhat mundane experiences to very entertaining stories. Sedaris, whose style has been compared to Mark Twain, and other famous authors and comedians, is described as having "one of the most shameless, acid, vaulting wits on planet earth" (Adam F. Kay, Boston Book Review). His over-the-top sarcasm, cynicism, and droll, trenchant humor combine to turn his either very trivial, or absolutely mortifying experiences into "widly entertaining art." (Rob Stout Providence Journal) .
The essays begin in North Carolina, where fifth grader David "Thedarith" endures his speech therapy with Miss Chrissy Samson, and skillfully avoids his sibilate s through the use of a thesaurus which provides him with a large vocabulary completely free of s sounds. Through the essays we learn about his family: his sister who wears fat suits, his brother who calls himself "The Rooster" and speaks with excessive vulgarities, and his father, who receives the most attention in the essays, for his "comic eccentricity" (Olli Chanoff, Editor) and is known for hiding liquefied peaches in the medicine cabinet, and figs in the trunk "until they assumed the consistency of tar." We also follow David through his years as a teacher, a drug addict and an artist, from North Carolina, to Chicago, to New York and finally to France, where he, with his boyfriend Hugh, struggles to assimilate the French culture and painfully learn the language. .
I think that David Sedaris's humor is very funny. His ability to find humor in any situation is demonstrated in the most horrifying, to the most mundane stories. Combining sick, twisted scenarios with incredibly funny descriptions of these scenarios makes for a very odd type of humor where although you are laughing out loud, your mind is filled with heart wrenching realizations of how true to life these situations may be.
