# Who Is This David Sedaris Guy? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 20, 2003, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490 "2003-08-20T17:40:27Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![HeyHomie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/heyhomie/32/207_2.png) [@HeyHomie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HeyHomie)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 5:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/1 "2003-08-20T17:40:27Z")
A quick search revealed that David Sedaris is somewhat popular around here (Café Society, that is). I just finished _Me Talk Pretty One Day_ and I’m a few pages into _Naked_ (yes, I know: out of chronological order). _Me Talk Pretty One Day_ seems to imply that Mr. Sedaris was scrubbing floors in a commercial cleaning outfit as recently as 2000. However, it seems as though he’s been publishing books since the mid '90’s or earlier. So either he wasn’t making any money with his books and kept cleaning floors to make ends meeet, or my math is wrong, or his bits about commercial cleaning are fiction. Can someone give me something of a timeline of David Sedaris’ career? Also, who _is_ he, really? Is he just some guy who worked shmoe jobs, then somebody noticed his genius for writing, and he started writing books? Please help a Sedaris newbie. TIA ---
**Author:** ![Mamapotomus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/94ad74/32.png) [@Mamapotomus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mamapotomus)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 6:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/2 "2003-08-20T18:12:58Z")
Make that 2 Sedaris newbies, please. I finished _Me Talk Pretty One Day_ recently and I’ve listened to his _This American Life_ pieces over the years; but I know nothing about him or his career. Except for the Elf phase, of course. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![krazy\_kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b2d939/32.png) [@krazy\_kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/krazy_kat)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/3 "2003-08-20T18:19:32Z")
I can tell you that his sister, Amy, was the star of the (underrated, IMO) Strangers with Candy on comedy central. She also wrote a book with Steven Colbert (Daily Show) David is also (or used to be) a contributer for NPR. ---
**Author:** ![plnnr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ea924/32.png) [@plnnr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/plnnr)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/4 "2003-08-20T18:34:42Z")
Hilarious, isn’t he? Originally from New York, most of the stories about his family take place in Raleigh, NC (IIRC). A site I checked made it sound like he got his start as a writer who did cleaning as a way to make ends meet, was first heard reading from his works while living in Chicago, and has expanded from there. I, too, first heard him on NPR and then picked up his books. I like the stories about his old lady neighbor who couldn’t cook the best. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/5 "2003-08-20T19:27:33Z")
Odd. I just two days ago read an article by him in the current issue of The New Yorker. It was a story about being harassed by a little neighbor girl. I didn’t know who he was, and I remember the name only because there was a reference in the article to his father’s family being Greek, so I looked back at the name. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/6 "2003-08-20T19:57:41Z")
[Flack site](http://www.barclayagency.com/sedaris.html) [Fan site](http://home.pacifier.com/~paddockt/sedaris.html) [Interviews and other resources](http://free.freespeech.org/ari/sedaris/) A Google search on his name will turn up many additional interviews etc. for your edification and amusement. ---
**Author:** ![Sampiro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/2acd7d/32.png) [@Sampiro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sampiro)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/7 "2003-08-20T20:25:40Z")
[This Esquire Site](http://esquire.mondosearch.com/cgi-bin/MsmFind4.4.exe?QUERY_ENCODING=UTF-8&GO.X=0&GO.Y=0&QUERY=sedaris&RESMASK=MssRes%2Emsk&CFGNAME=MssFind%2Ecfg&MEDIA_TYPE=0&AND_ON=N&AGE_WGT=0&EN=X&AGE_WGT=0&CAT_KEY=13&BACK_FIRST_CAT_NUM=0) contains dozens of his full text columns, many of which were later incorporated into his books. ---
**Author:** ![scout1222](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/34f0e0/32.png) [@scout1222](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scout1222)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/8 "2003-08-20T22:49:31Z")
If he ever comes to town for an evening of comedy, I highly recommend it. About a year ago, he and Sara Vowell were in town for a night. It was wildly funny. Mostly stories about his family, all in the same vein of his books. [I confess that I think I’d heard one story before, but it doesn’t matter - it’s still funny!] He’s coming back in October, and I plan on being there. ---
**Author:** ![Daniel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Daniel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daniel)\ **Post date:** [August 20, 2003, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-this-david-sedaris-guy/196490/9 "2003-08-20T23:06:53Z")
I’d say it was This American Life on NPR that gave him his start as a writer. He drew upon his odd jobs in life for his stories (another TAL contributor, David Rakoff, has a similar bunch of stories. I actually slightly prefer Rakoff to Sedaris). Nowadays, Sedaris is a bit predictable in that any story you see in Esquire will be taped from a live reading and then aired on This American Life. His presence is fairly difficult to miss. But really, there’s no better place to find his life story than in his own books.