Product Description

Anyone that has read NAKED and BARREL FEVER, or heard David Sedaris speaking live or on the radio will tell you that a new collection from him is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious new pieces, including 'Me Talk Pretty One Day', about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that 'every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section'. His family is another inspiration. 'You Can't Kill the Rooster' is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.

Hilarious, sharply perceptive and surpassing all national boundaries of humour, ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY is a compelling introduction or a very welcome return to David Sedaris - compared by The New Yorker to Twain and Hawthorne - who has taken America and Europe by storm.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3129 in Books
• Published on: 2002-01-03
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
David Sedaris became a star autobiographer on public radio, onstage in New York, and on bestseller lists, mostly on the strength of Santaland Diaries a scathing, hilarious account of his stint as a Christmas elf at Macy's department store. Sedaris's caustic gift has not deserted him in his fourth book, which mines poignant comedy from his peculiar childhood in North Carolina, his bizarre career path and his move with his lover to France.

Though his anarchic inclination to digress is his glory, Sedaris does have a theme in these reminiscences: the inability of humans to communicate. The title is his rendition in transliterated English of how he and his fellow students of French in Paris mangle the Gallic language. In the essay "Jesus Shaves", he and his classmates from many nations try to convey the concept of Easter to a Moroccan Muslim. "It is a party for the little boy of God", says one. "Then he be die one day on two... morsels of... lumber", says another. Sedaris muses on the disputes between his Protestant mother and his father, a Greek Orthodox man whose Easter fell on a different day. Other essays explicate his deep kinship with his eccentric mother and absurd alienation from his IBM-exec dad: "To me, the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests".

Every glimpse we get of Sedaris's family and acquaintances delivers laughs and insights. He thwarts his North Carolina speech therapist ("for whom the word pen had two syllables") by cleverly avoiding all words with "s" sounds, which reveal the lisp she sought to correct. His midget guitar teacher, Mister Mancini, is unaware that Sedaris doesn't share his obsession with breasts, and sings "Light My Fire" all wrong--"as if he were a Webelo scout demanding a match". As a remarkably unqualified teacher at the Art Institute of Chicago, Sedaris had his class watch soap operas and assign "guessays" on what would happen in the next day's episode. It all adds up to the most distinctively skewed autobiography since Spalding Gray's Swimming to Cambodia. --Tim Appelo

Synopsis
Anyone that has read NAKED and BARREL FEVER, or heard David Sedaris speaking live or on the radio will tell you that a new collection from him is cause for jubilation. His recent move to Paris from New York inspired these hilarious new pieces, including 'Me Talk Pretty One Day', about his attempts to learn French from a sadistic teacher who declares that 'every day spent with you is like having a caesarean section'. His family is another inspiration. 'You Can't Kill the Rooster' is a portrait of his brother, who talks incessant hip-hop slang to his bewildered father. And no one hones a finer fury in response to such modern annoyances as restaurant meals presented in ludicrous towers of food and cashiers with six-inch fingernails.

Customer Reviews

Cocktail party anecdotes served up like pretty canapes
Me Talk Pretty One Day is the first Sedaris book I've read. It is a series of anecdotes and reminicences and, as such, the chapters are rather uneven. The best of them (towards the end of the book) are genuinely laugh-out-loud funny; when Seadris pulls it off he creates that magical mixture of insightfulness, charm, bitchiness and wit that makes you wish he were singing for his supper at one of your dinner parties.

Clear-eyed observation of both the eccentricities of family and friends, and the moments we all can relate to, however obliquely, is at the base of the best humour and Sedaris definitely has this.

Inevitably, he does not quite pull it off with all his stories, which can then seem slight, rather staged and a little mannered.

I've given him 4 stars because I did laugh out loud at one point, which is an amazingly difficult trick to pull off. That said, I would have given 3.5 if that was possible, because there were moments early on when I was not really sure why I was continuing with the book.

On the plus side, it is easy to dip in and out of, so recommended (even if not highly) for travelling or for when you want something you can pick up and put down.

His best work
This is by far David Sedaris's best work--not that any of his are bad, but that this one shines above the rest. And it's a bit ironic that he's found a more sympathetic audience in the UK and other countries than in his of U.S.orA. Perhaps it's his extrordinary wit, so English, so refined, yet bawdy one minute, and heart-felt the next. There are some shocking observations in this collection of stories, but Sedaris nails situations and characters on the head and pulls no punches. If you liked his "Naked" or the novel "Katzenjammer" by Jackson Tippett McCrae, then you'll like Sedaris's style and humour. Personally, I vote this the best book I've read all year.

His Funniest Book! - Great Amazon Impulse buy!
Elegantly written and utterly hilarious, "Me Talk Pretty One Day" will have you laughing page after page. In 'Smart Guy' my favorite essay, Sedaris takes an IQ test with Mensa. He is crushed when he receives the results. This is the type of book where you end up having great empathy with the writer. Sedaris portrays himself as a kind of weakling, a loser, but in reading this book you realize he is anything BUT a loser. A wonderful purchase. I'm very happy. Another enjoyable Amazon pick I need to recommend is "The Losers' Club" by Richard Perez, also funny and thoughtful.