You gotta love a book that includes a blurb by Paul Reubens (that's Pee Wee Herman to all you "Playhouse" fans): "If I were to read a book on David Sedaris it might be this one."
I couldn't have said it better myself. Sedaris (University of Minnesota Press, 249 pages, $17.95) by Kevin Kopelson is a curious little reader. Kopelson, a professor of English at the University of Iowa, turns his subject — David Sedaris, essayist, satirist, NPR contributor, best-selling author — inside out...
He takes a term-paper approach to Sedaris' work thus far and looks for the seriousness behind the satire that ultimately resonates with readers.
Rabid, stalker-like Sedaris fans might eat this up, but those who enjoy Sedaris for Sedaris' sake might want to leave it be. The more I read the more I found myself wanting to put it down and pick up my copy of Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day that I left, half-read, on my bookshelf a half-dozen years ago.
You gotta hand it to Kopelson, though. He got not one, but two celebrities to blurb his book. The other is from David Hyde Pierce ("Frasier"): "Charting a course from Marcel Proust to Tony Danza, Kevin artfully captures the exquisite pleasure and pain of reading David Sedaris. A witty, thoughtful, intimate encounter."
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