Best of Me
2020
- american literature
- nyt:combined-print-and-e-book-nonfiction=2020-11-22
- humor, form, essays
- american wit and humor
- families
- nyt:paperback-nonfiction=2021-09-26
The story
For more than twenty-five years, David Sedaris has been carving out a unique literary space, virtually creating his own genre. A Sedaris story may seem confessional, but is also highly attuned to the world outside. It opens our eyes to what is absurd and moving about our daily existence. And it is almost impossible to listen without laughing. Now, for the first time collected in one volume, the author brings us his funniest and most memorable work. But if all you expect to find in Sedaris’s work is the deft and sharply observed comedy for which he became renowned, you may be surprised to discover that his words bring more warmth than mockery, more fellow-feeling than derision. Nowhere is this clearer than in his writing about his loved ones. Taken together, the performances in *The Best of Me* reveal the wonder and delight Sedaris takes in the surprises life brings him. No experience, he sees, is quite as he expected—it’s often harder, more fraught, and certainly weirder—but sometimes it is also much richer and more wonderful. Full of joy, generosity, and the incisive humor that has led David Sedaris to be called “the funniest man alive” (*Time Out New York*), *The Best of Me* spans a career spent watching and learning and laughing—quite often at himself—and invites listeners deep into the world of one of the most brilliant and original writers of our time.
What it’s like
Brisk, conversational first-person essays in a bright, unfussy voice, the kind of prose that reads like a friend mid-anecdote, with deadpan asides and sudden turns toward tenderness. Think of an ordinary kitchen table on a lazy weekend morning, a mug going cold, the light coming in flat and clear. The collection moves in short bursts, each piece wrapping up before it can sag, so it suits dipping in for a few minutes on a commute, reading aloud at a breakfast table, or keeping close on a long flight. The humor is wry and observational rather than cutting, and much of the warmth gathers around family: parents, siblings, and the odd, stubborn habits that make them recognizable. Its intensity is mild: some frank talk about drinking, drugs, and bodies, brief sexual references, and occasional bleak or awkward episodes, but no real violence and little that feels harsh. It is for readers who want to laugh out loud without feeling mocked, and who enjoy a writer who notices the strange, sad, and absurd in everyday life.
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