THE LAND AND ITS PEOPLE - DAVID SEDARIS

Because of where I grew up (Chapel Hill) and when (late 90’s-early 2000’s) and who my parents are (academics/scientists) I grew up around a lot of NPR during the rise and then the heights of Sedaris’ fame. As such, I think I’ve read all of his essay books (I think he has a few like non-essay fiction/stories books and I haven’t read those) so I’m always going to read a new one when it comes out. Especially since Sedaris mastered early and has only continued to master the immensely readable essay. They’re always funny and interesting, they never overstay their welcome or get too big-picture or deep. Very few things go down as easy as some Sedaris. Because they’re autobiographical, their depth comes over time. You don’t really need to know any of the deeper context, you could read any of them in any order and have a nice time, but, you do get a different experience if you’re a completist . You read story after story about his siblings or his partner, sometimes they are the focus of the essay (or their relationship with Sedaris is the focus, the essays are never really “about” anything but Sedaris himself) sometimes they are background characters in a scene or so, but eventually you do get to know all of these people and feel the ebb and flow of their lives and how they change over time. Now, this structure led to the most compelling dynamic in all of Sedaris’ writing, which was his relationship with his father. We read about how his father treated him as a kid, teen and young adult and pre-fame adult. We see how their relationship changes as Sedaris gets successful and, eventually, quite successful. We see how age changes both of them and we even got a report of his last living words to Sedaris, “you won” which is incredible. I do think they should pluck out the half-dozen or so dad-focused essays and release them together. But, either way, now that the father is dead and gone, the books he writes don’t have this center, which does lend them a lightness. So instead we get essays that talk about Sedaris’ pretty cushy life. He goes on Safari, he buys weird expensive clothes, he vacations and makes references to his numerous apartments in major cities across the world. The sort of obsessiveness that makes one keep a journal every day of their life, which is the soil from which these essays grow, has now metastasized into an obsessions with daily DuoLingo’ing and getting 10k steps, so there is a lot of mention of that in this book too, and all the zany things he’ll do to make sure he hits those goals. There’s sprinkled bits about ageing but not as much as one might think, given Sedaris’ age, maybe that’s coming in future books. The one thing I did notice in this volume is how much of this is meant to be read. Sedaris tours relentlessly, I think he does genuinely love it and it does give him a lot to write about, but this is the first book where I felt like I could tell he wrote some of this stuff for the stage, there are obvious laugh lines that feel a little silly or nonsequitor-y when reading but I’m sure kill in an auditorium.