David Sedaris

American nonfiction writer and humorist

• Born: December 26, 1956
• Place of Birth: Binghamton, New York

Biography

Born in North Carolina, David Sedaris went to Chicago in his twenties and at age thirty received his undergraduate degree from the Art Institute of Chicago, where he later taught writing classes. During the years that preceded the publication of his first collection of short stories, Origins of the Underclass, and Other Stories, Sedaris mostly did menial jobs, explaining that he could write only after dark and that if he did not occupy himself with something during the daylight hours, he would feel like a bum.

Among the most sardonic and satiric contemporary writers, Sedaris’s work draws heavily on experiences from his life and from his work experience as a muscle man for a moving company, a cleaner of apartments, and, during one holiday season, one of Santa Claus’s elves in SantaLand at Macy’s department store in New York. He often read publicly from his diaries, in which he recounts his experiences in the many menial pursuits that preceded his discovery as a polished wit. This discovery occurred around 1991, when Sedaris moved to New York and began to read excerpts from these diaries for National Public Radio (NPR), where he soon became a regular.

His commentaries on hitchhiking, overcoming the nervous disorders of his childhood, and his remarkable work experiences were all delivered deadpan and with a quavering voice that attracted enthusiastic audiences. Sedaris’s commentaries succeeded because of their incredible humor, but underlying many of them was a deeper vein that enticed his audiences. Many of his autobiographical essays focused on his family: his father was an eccentric IBM engineer, while his mother, presented in a story entitled “Ashes,” was a homemaker who later suffered from cancer. “Ashes” appears in the collection entitled Naked, the title story of which is a humorous account of the author’s stay at a nudist colony. The story’s title, though, also suggests the private elements that the stories in the book reveal. It has been said that underlying most comedy is some tragedy. This certainly is the case in much of Sedaris’s work.

Sedaris, who is openly gay, collaborated on largely autobiographical plays with his sister, Amy Sedaris, who belonged to Chicago’s Second City comedy group. Their Little Frieda Mysteries was produced at New York’s La Mama in 1997. The two have also collaborated on plays for NPR. David Sedaris’s diary entry “Diary of a Smoker,” which appeared as an essay in Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays, was adapted for film by Matthew Modine, who made it into a thirteen-minute production that was screened at the Sundance Film Festival in 1994 and was later aired on the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS). Sedaris writes with a disarming wit and with remarkable penetration into the human condition. He is particularly interested in the overstated self-delusion of some of his best characters, people who live in self-created worlds of unreality.

Sedaris has published several books, including Me Talk Pretty One Day (2000), Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denis (2004), Children Playing before a Statue of Hercules (2005), When You Are Engulfed in Flames (2008), Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (2010), Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls (2013), Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977–2002 (2017), and Happy Go Lucky (2022). Sedaris published his critically acclaimed children's book, Pretty Ugly, in 2024.

In addition to releasing audiobook versions of these titles, in which Sedaris tells these stories aloud, he has also produced live recordings of his story-telling appearances, including David Sedaris: Live for Your Listening Pleasure (2009). In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters, an elite honor society of only 250 of the best writers and artists in the country.

Author Works

Children's Books

Pretty Ugly, 2024

Drama

Stump the Host, pr. 1993 (with Amy Sedaris)

Stitches, pr. 1994 (with Amy Sedaris)

Little Frieda Mysteries, pr. 1997 (with Amy Sedaris)

Incident at Cobbler's Knob, pr. 1997 (with Amy Sedaris)

Santaland Diaries and Seasons Greetings: Two Plays, pb. 1998

The Book of Liz, pb. 2002 (with Amy Sedaris)

Nonfiction

Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays, 1994

Naked, 1997

Holidays on Ice, 1997

Me Talk Pretty One Day, 2000

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, 2004

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules, 2005

When You Are Engulfed in Flames, 2008

Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, 2010

Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls, 2013

Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977–2002, 2017

Calypso, 2018

The Best of Me, 2020

A Carnival of Snackery: Diaries, 2021

Happy-Go-Lucky, 2022

Bibliography

Gana, Myrsini. “Is David Sedaris Funny In Greek?” World Literature Today, www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2014/march/david-sedaris-funny-greek-myrsini-gana. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.

Gross, Terry. "David Sedaris on the Life-Altering and Mundane Pages of His Old Diaries." NPR Fresh Air, 31 May 2017, www.npr.org/2017/05/31/530810011/david-sedaris-on-the-life-altering-and-mundane-pages-of-his-old-diaries. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.

McAlpin, Heller. "In 'Happy-Go-Lucky,' David Sedaris Reflects on His Fraught Relationship With His Dad." NPR, 31 May 2022, www.npr.org/2022/05/31/1102104079/in-happy-go-lucky-david-sedaris-reflects-on-his-fraught-relationship-with-his-da. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.

Sedaris, David. “‘Let’s Explore’: David Sedaris on His Public Private Life.” NPR Fresh Air, 24 Apr. 2013, www.npr.org/2013/04/24/178656338/lets-explore-david-sedaris-on-his-public-private-life. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.

Sedaris, David. “Now We Are Five.” The New Yorker, 28 Oct. 2013, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/10/28/now-we-are-five. Accessed 16 Oct. 2024.

Sedaris, David. Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977–2002. Little, Brown and Company, 2017.