My amour for David Sedaris continues to deepen with his latest "When You Are Engulfed in Flames."
A standard for any hipster's library, the Sedaris series never disappoints. I will say however, that compared to "Corduroy", which I enjoyed but felt was more on the sentimental side, he's back in his snarkiest of forms in "Flames".
My favorite of this collection is "That's Amore", a tale of Helen, a woman so bitter crotchety and hardened, that she's absolutely lovable in her repulsiveness. She's a member of a group of old timers who's slowly passing on and at some point, they just won't make 'em like her anymore. Cigarette in one hand, whiskey glass in the other, cursing their last days on earth.
It's hard to think people like her grew up in a time without blogs, red states and blue states, and "No Smoking" signs. Not that I'm saying that's bad necessarily. It's just sad in a way that those characters with a very pointed/cut-thru-the-bull view of the world will soon be extinct.
She reminds me of my grandmother who's charms I never fully appreciated 'til it was almost too late. She always scared me with her rough smoker's voice and gruff language when I was little. But as I got older, I got her more.
She wore a house coat and curlers, smoked Luckies - no filters, and cursed like a sailor. She also made us pull over once lost in NYC to pick up a 6-pack so at least she could drink while we were driving around lost.
Anyway, David makes me laugh, cry and think in every book I read of his. He's someone I want to be friends with, yet would never want to know because God only knows what I'd end up reading about myself.
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