Sedaris's New Essays: More Cranky, Still Moving
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- David Sedaris publishes "The Land and Its People," his 10th essay collection, containing 28 short pieces drawn from life with husband Hugh, his siblings, friends, and travels through New York, England, and beyond
- The reviewer calls the new material increasingly "shticky" and reliant on thin anecdotes, comparing Sedaris at 69 to "a gay Larry David" and faulting him for leaning too hard into a grumpy-old-man register
- Sedaris's weakest jokes — including a riff on saying "mothering person" instead of "motherfucker" and asking "are you allowed to say swarthy any more?" — strike the reviewer as "beneath a writer of his standing"
- The strongest essays are about people close to Sedaris: his late mother (in "Cool Mom"), his oldest friend Dawn, and boyhood pal Dan Thompson, whose death prompts the line: "This is my life, but different now, diminished"
- In "The Hem of His Garment," Sedaris holds up the late Texas governor Ann Richards — mother of the late Cecile Richards of Planned Parenthood — as someone who dazzles outside show business
- Sedaris has sold more than 16 million books, and several of the new essays were previously published in the New Yorker
Why it matters: Sedaris has sold more than 16 million books and built a career on touring and anecdote-mining — for his less committed fans, this 10th collection delivers diminishing returns on the cranky formula, even as writing about grief and family still hits with full force.
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