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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 818.5402
EAN: 9780316777735
ISBN: 0316777730
Label: Back Bay Books
Manufacturer: Back Bay Books
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 224
Publication Date: June 01, 1998
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Studio: Back Bay Books
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com Review:
Hip radio comedy fans and theater folks who belong to the cult of Obie-winning playwright/performer David Sedaris must kill to get this book. These would be fans of the scaldingly snide Sedaris's hilariously described personal misadventures like The Santaland Diaries (a monologue about his work as an elf to a department store Santa) seen off-Broadway in 1997. In a series of similarly textured essays, Sedaris takes us along on his catastrophic detours through a nudist colony, a fruit-packing plant, his own childhood, and a dozen more of the world's little purgatories.
Product Description:
Welcome to the hilarious, strange, elegiac, outrageous world of David Sedaris. In Naked, Sedaris turns the mania for memoir on its ear, mining the exceedingly rich terrain of his life, his family, and his unique worldview-a sensibility at once take-no-prisoners sharp and deeply charitable. A tart-tongued mother does dead-on imitations of her young son's nervous tics, to the great amusement of his teachers; a stint of Kerouackian wandering is undertaken (of course!) with a quadriplegic companion; a family gathers for a wedding in the face of imminent death. Through it all is Sedaris's unmistakable voice, without doubt one of the freshest in American writing.
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I thought my family was insane, and they are- but Sedaris's family makes mine look boring in comparison. He is insightful, his descriptions are always very visual and funny and his cynicism has an unexpected warmth!
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I love all of David Sedaris' books, and Naked is my absolute fave. Sedaris is funny and smart without "mugging" for laughs. His use of language and tempo is spot on. One of my favorite quotes of all time comes from the story, "Dinah the Christmas Whore," when Dinah, the Christmas Whore, drunk at the Sedaris family home, lovingly refers to Sedaris and his siblings as "A pack of goddman angels."
The author is glaringly open about his insecurities, hopes, dreams, downfalls, and it is this is why we can laugh at his criticisms of those around him because he is always most critical of himself.
"Get Your Yaya's Out," about Sedaris' depressed, unassimilated (though having lived in the US for four decades at least)Greek grandmother with a tendency to gather and eat the neighbor's plants, is both hilarious and sad. I don't want give anything else away because it's a treat to explore this book on your own.
I don't believe that this should be labled as a "gay memoir." Good writing, humor, the human condition, the universal unconscious: all supercede sexual identity, race, or religion. I adore Naked and I find myself relating to Sedaris more than any other author and that is the stark truth.
Audrey Spilker Hagar, author, Our Lives Have Gone to the Dogs
Rating:  -
I bought this book thinking it's new because the listed publish date is May 2009. When I looked into the book, it says it was published in 1997. It would be nice if they could get their information straight before adding books to their web pages! That's completely misleading.
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I picked up the book Naked by David Sedaris at a thrift store and it's been collecting dust on my computer cabinet at home ever since. Not because I didn't want to read it but because my floor-to-ceiling bookcases are crammed full and I just hadn't gotten around to it yet. The reason for my sudden interest is due, in full, to a Facebook note that circulated yesterday instructing the reader to grab the first book nearest you and post the fifth sentence from page 56 as your Facebook status. "Pimps and circus clowns have been dressing that way for years." jumped off the page at me and after going through several pages on my train commute to work this morning, I was hooked.
Perhaps because I can (painfully) relate, the section entitled "A Plague of Tics" where the author recounts his earliest memories of OCD, was hysterically funny to me. I tried to read it during my lunch break but was seriously afraid I was going to choke, I was laughing so hard - I had to put my fork down. I imagine even non-sufferers of this wretched and embarrassing absurdity of a disorder will find humour in his comical narrative.
I owe it to my Facebook friends for inspiring me to finally dust the cover and crack this one open. I haven't laughed this much in one setting since watching Kevin James perform his onstage act Sweat the Small Stuff.
I've barely gotten through the first few chapters, but I am completely enamored. More later . . .
Rating: -
Crazy, laugh out loud funny, especially if you can relate to the quirky obsessive compulsive behaviors, the mother who has her own FUNNY (nutty) way of dealing with her life, ...and this is just the first few chapters!
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