Sedaris's 'The Land and Its People': Crankiness and Charm
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- David Sedaris publishes "The Land and Its People," his 10th essay collection of 28 short pieces, some previously published in the New Yorker, with Sedaris having sold more than 16 million books
- "Cool Mom," an essay about Sedaris's mother triggered by a fiftysomething woman at Denver airport wearing an "I'm a cool mom" T-shirt, is singled out as the collection's strongest work
- "A Long Way Home" recounts Sedaris and his husband Hugh giving a stranger named Susan Du a seven-hour ride from Maine after a cancelled flight — a piece the reviewer found "unaccountably moving"
- The reviewer critiques Sedaris's adoption of the grumpy-old-man trope — noting he is only 69 — as "beneath a writer of Sedaris's standing" and says some of the newer material is "increasingly shticky"
- Sedaris's No Kings protest essay in Portsmouth, New Hampshire draws praise for its mockery of fellow demonstrators, who Sedaris compares to "the kooks of the Tea Party" — joking they offer "the worst possible advertisement for the Democratic Party: 'Join us! We folk-dance!'"
- The reviewer invokes a profile of J.K. Rowling to suggest Sedaris may consider himself "part of the post-editing elite" — unedited because his superfans will buy anything
Why it matters: For Sedaris's 16-million-book readership, the review signals that his strongest material remains the deeply personal family writing — the essay about his mother, his childhood friend Dawn, and his late boyhood pal Dan Thompson — while the crankier cultural commentary is running on fumes. The implication for readers weighing the $25 hardcover: the family essays are essential, the protest-and-packaging grumbling is skippable.
