Mini-Review: When You Are Engulfed in Flames

I’m worried about David Sedaris. He’s written half a dozen books, each filled with at least twenty-plus bizarre anecdotes. At this rate he’s soon going to run out of wacky memories to put down on paper. I’m afraid he’ll take up a crazy hobby like spelunking or base jumping to generate new stories. Then he’ll vanish on a hot-air balloon trip over the North Pole or something equally ridiculous.

For now, though, it seems he still has plenty of crazy story gas left in the mental tank. Sorry, that was a lousy metaphor. The absurdities pile up in his newest book, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames”: David Sedaris is solicited for oral sex by a crusty old trucker! David Sedaris befriends a French child molester! David Sedaris moves to Japan in a desperate attempt to kick his addiction to smoking! David Sedaris’s family is wacky! And that’s a wrap, boys!

It’s enough to make me wonder if there’s some truth to allegations that Sedaris has been—to put it politely—lying his pants off. So…he spent several months rooming with a schizophrenic, but never mentioned in any of his previous books? And I dare you to read his account of Mrs. Peacock, Satan’s own baby sitter, and tell me it’s 100% truthful. Maybe it’s my callow youth, but I refuse to believe one man could lead meet so many eccentrics in one lifetime.

Of course, maybe I’m wrong. I hope I’m wrong. And even if I’m dead on the money, I really don’t care. David Sedaris could write a book of short essays set on Saturn and call it a memoir, and I’d still buy it. I mean, listen to him describe his brief employment at the morgue:

We had a case on Halloween, an eighty-year old who had tumbled from a ladder while replacing a light bulb. The autopsy took place in the morning and was the best argument for the buddy system I had ever seen. Never live alone, I told myself. Before you change a light bulb, call someone from the other room and have him watch until you are finished.

To quote something I saw in the newspaper a few days ago, “It don’t Gitmo better than that!” Sure, a few stories might drag at points. And his commencement address to Princeton is so utterly bizarre it undermines the humor like a frantic mole. Sorry, that was also a pretty lousy metaphor. But pieces like “That’s Amore,” the story of Sedaris’s cranky New York neighbor, or “Solutions to Saturday’s Puzzle,” the story of an airline flight gone horribly wrong, are as good as anything he’s ever done.

If you must buy one David Sedaris book—if someone holds a gun to your head and demands that you pick up a collection of short, humorous essays written by Raleigh’s only famous gay humorist—don’t pick up this one. But if you’re a Sedaris fan you can’t go wrong with “When You Are Engulfed in Flames.” Well, I guess you can go wrong with it if you use it to bludgeon someone to death. But you can’t go wrong reading it.