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Topic: Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time: 3/28/2007 1:59:30 PM
Title: People read Sedaris to laugh, not to learn
Posted By: Jim Romenesko
 
From DAN MITCHELL Way back in 1994, I interviewed David Sedaris about his first book, "Barrel Fever." In the story I wrote for the Chicago Tribune, I noted that the book contained both fictional stories and "essays" (according to the flap). The latter I described as "ostensibly factual."

So obvious was it that the essays were embellished that -- while I wondered a bit at the publisher's classification scheme -- I felt it unnecessary to come out and say anything about it, beyond using the word "ostensibly" and just describing the stories. Readers, I figured, were probably smart enough to realize that the stories were embellished. Like the one where Mr. Sedaris told how, while working as an apartment-cleaner, he regularly mixed ammonia and bleach to clean window blinds, knowing the mixture was potentially deadly, but managing to get through it by repeating to himself "I want to live, I want to live."

Stories in "Naked" and subsequent books got only weirder and more
obviously embellished. And, not coincidentally, more entertaining.

Mr. Heard insists that the idea that the embellishments are bloody obvious "doesn't wash." Maybe I'm way off in my assessment of the basic intelligence of the reading public (or at least the Sedaris-reading public), but if I'm right, that just tells me that Mr. Heard may have been the wrong person for this particular assignment.

But what struck me most about Mr. Heard's 4,000+ word investigative epic was its presentation. He painted himself as an intrepid gumshoe, making sure to mention how much he traveled and how difficult it was for him to find people from Mr. Sedaris' past. And what did he come up with? Mr. Sedaris' midget guitar teacher wasn't, after all, a creepy sexist or a hateful homophobe -- wasn't, after all, the outlandishly cartoonish character Mr. Sedaris presented him as, using a fictitious name. Mr. Sedaris' parents weren't, after all, completely out of their minds. And his sister Tiffany informs us that, in fact, ""I don't walk around my house in my bare feet, stamping out cigarettes."

What lid Mr. Heard thinks he has blown off of what story remains known only to him and his editors at the New Republic. Mr. Sedaris is out to entertain, not to dupe the public. Unlike James Frey or Stephen Glass, he isn't presenting material that's meant to be serious, helpful, or journalistic. People read these books to laugh, not to learn.

As Mr. Heard himself notes, Mr. Sedaris has repeatedly owned up to "exaggerations" in his work, both within this piece and in the years preceding it. But apparently that's not good enough. Mr. Sedaris' definition of "exaggeration" must match Mr. Heard's, or else Mr. Heard is going to do a number on Mr. Sedaris, and call him a liar in a popular magazine.

Now, don't get me wrong. I think the presentation of Mr. Sedaris' pseudo-memoirs as "non-fiction" is problematic (somewhat), and a worthy subject to tackle. The question is what approach to take. The stories are certainly based on factual events, and they certainly make use of real people. But they are just as certainly embellished. And, importantly, they are humor. Entertainment. So, what classification should be used? I'm not sure what approach would be best for an article about this. Maybe one that starts from the premise that we all know, or should know, that the stories are embellished. Maybe one that employs a little humor for what is, after all, not exactly the scandal of the century. Or one that pins the responsibility for classifying such books on the publisher more than on the writer. A self-serious "investigation," presented with the same sense of gravity given to the Washington Post's Walter Reed series, seems to me to be the worst possible approach for this subject.

In his reaction to Mr. Heard's piece, J. Peder Zane writes in the Raleigh News & Observer that Mr. Heard's "investigation of Sedaris' work might have been useful without his prosecutorial swagger...". Hear, hear.

Perhaps next we'll learn that some of the guests on the Jerry Springer Show have been coached. [Permalink]

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