David Sedaris hasn’t brought a coat. There’s just a pane of glass between him and the blustery beginnings of an Ottawa winter, strings of Christmas lights dotting frosted air outside the hotel lobby.
He is in the midst of throwing out his hands, a flippant gesture directed towards the cold outside, when a thought occurs to him — he may not have a coat, but he does have a hat! Fishing a weedy bit of grey wool out of his tote bag, he pulls it over his scalp to cover his upper lip, a cosy grey moustache accenting his delighted smile.
“It has a bearded moustache . . . that’s all I need, isn’t it?” he asks, and, pausing for effect, adds, “Do you think the grey makes me look older?”
Sedaris was 20 when he started writing. Now 53, he is indeed looking older. His essay collections, from “Me Talk Pretty One Day” to “When You Are Engulfed in Flames,” are standard fare for the New York Times Bestseller’s List. His stories are honed in darkened theatres on his marathon lecture tours, make their debut in The New Yorker and Esquire, and come to life on the radio program This American Life — all before reaching hard cover.
The essays, which fall into the genre of Reliably Hilarious, cover everything from growing up gay in North Carolina — complete with a midget guitar teacher named Mr. Mancini — to his drug-filled early years in New York and Chicago, to his homemaking in an idyllic French village with his long-time boyfriend. They have also catapulted his colourful family into the annals of American icons; his sister, Amy Sedaris, is a famous comedienne.
And although he admits the David of his essays is, in part, a character, his in-person charm doesn’t fail to satisfy. It’s in the warmth of his gap-toothed smile that his mile-a-minute barbs go down like hot chocolate, while his pocket thoughts on life and love take the edge off a constant stream of dirty jokes. This penchant for the sweet and the sinful — or the disgusting, absurd and disturbing — has served him well.
In his latest book, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modern Bestiary, they serve him best of all. He takes frustrating and intimately knowable characters — competitive mothers, power-tripping journalists, zealous moralizers — and sets them on the page. The only difference is, this time they’re animals.
“It always feels good… when something horrible happens, or just, irritating happens, and then you can turn around and make money off of it,” he says with a smile. “But if people don’t write, I don’t know how they deal with stuff like that, you know when people make you feel like shit or when they say cruel things to you. I mean, that’s gold to me.”
Sedaris says his stories were inspired by Aesop’s Fables. And though he says some readers are worried he’ll never write about his family again, he says he’s happy with the outcome.
“I feel really good that this book is different,” he says. “And I think someone would be hard pressed to say ‘Oh, I much prefer the book that came out last year with the animal stories,’ because what are you going to compare this to?”
Sedaris’ fables may have morals, but along the way he’s not afraid to spill a few guts for the sake of satire. Asked why he takes such a delight in the gruesome, he simply shrugs. “If left to my own devices, that’s just where I go,” he says.
Later that night, at his book reading at the Rideau Street Chapters, he’ll prove his point, telling the story of two flies who meet over a vomit buffet — one a common “barfly,” the other a name-dropper obsessed with status.
Sedaris is now an old hand with the packed bookstores, TV appearances and constant interviews. His next interview is with CBC radio, and rather than cut ours short, he and his publicist invite me along for the cab ride. As we inch along Rideau Street traffic, drawing level with the Chateau Laurier, he turns thoughtful. The turnout for his reading is expected to be massive, but he still worries only five people will show up.
“I don’t know why people are there,” he says. “I mean, one day they won’t be there. Because it doesn’t last for anybody. But it’ll be a sad day for me.”
The cab pulls up in front of the CBC, and he looks out at the winter scene, announcing he has made up a new word: “festivulous.” He says it means “ultra festive,” describing the moment, however short, when you feel true Christmas spirit. Ottawa is looking pretty festivulous right now, he says.
And then it’s time to go. He slips out of the cab, his thin corduroy jacket flapping, his moustache-hat still bunched across his forehead. And I can’t help thinking that when Ottawa comes with David Sedaris, it’s festivulous, indeed.