In David Sedaris’s novel Naked, the author continues in his tradition of dark, reflective, autobiographical essays. In the same style as Me Talk Pretty One Day, Sedaris tells the unrelated stories in chronological order.
The novel begins with Sedaris’s romanticized view of his ideal family life, which is eventually contrasted with the crude reality he lived. A lot of the essays deal with the contrast between the author’s fantasies and the absurd reality, but the mention of his love for hyperbolic storytelling made me call into question just how authentic these stories truly are. The amount of detail mentioned in the recollected events is remarkable, and implies that post-college-drug-fiend Sedaris has an excellent memory, a vast library of journals, or is some kind of master at filling in the details with his imagination. Whatever the case may be, this certainly makes for a good story.
I think the authenticity of the stories is worth questioning, because a recurring theme of Naked is, well… nudity. There are occasions where literal nudity is discussed at length, but more so the metaphor of nudity as the truth. Sedaris is able to cut through to a character’s core personality and motives with dark humor. Sedaris does not spare himself from his criticisms, sometime portraying himself as egotistical, cowardly, and socially awkward in a delightful barrage of self deprecating humor.
The stories themselves are mostly unconnected and tend to be relatively short, but compelling. Occassionaly these stories made me laugh out loud (which, despite what certain online acronyms may suggest, doesn’t happen very often). While some stories in Me Talk Pretty One Day seemed slow at times, I can say that I honestly enjoyed Naked in its entirety. I particularly enjoyed the wild stories about hitchhiking across the country. Of course my favorite part about Sedaris’s writing is the hilarious characterization of his family. His father is the embodiment of the “father knows best” mentality, whose misguided attempts at keeping the family together make for a good read. The mother is sharp tongued and a bit rough around the edges, which accounts for six cynical, questioning siblings in Sedaris’s life.
Though a light tone pervades throughout, the author ventures seamlessly to the profound throughout the work. In particular, the story about his mother battling lung cancer is one of the most poignant pieces in the collection. You really do want to laugh and cry all at once, which is a difficult task for any author to pull off.
Ultimately, if you enjoy things like emotions, laughing, and good writing, David Sedaris may be the right choice for you. If you are the type that prefers suckling on shards of broken glass while you knowingly wait for somebody to hit you in the face with something hard and heavy, I would have to recommend checking out whatever piece of shit Dan Brown is pushing these days.
- Goodreads rating – 4.09
- SUMMARY – Joshua Lear