When You Are Engulfed In Flames

Description

David Sedaris remarkable ability to uncover the hilarious absurdity teeming just below the surface of everyday life is elevated to wilder and more entertaining heights than ever in this new book of stories. Sedaris proceeds from bizarre conundrums of daily life - the etiquette of having a lozenge fall from your mouth into the lap of a fellow passenger or how to soundproof your windows with LP covers against neurotic songbirds - to the most deeply resonant human truths. Taking in the parasitic worm that once lived in his mother-in-law s leg, an encounter with a dingo, the purchase of a human skeleton and culminating in a brilliant account of his attempt to quit smoking - in Tokyo - David Sedaris' sixth story collection is a fresh masterpiece of comic writing.

David Sedaris lives in Paris. Raised in North Carolina, he has worked as a housecleaner and most famously, as a part-time elf for Macy's. Several of his plays have been produced, and he is a regular contributor to Esquire and Public Radio International's 'This American Life.'

'A virtual Klondike of darkly glittering anecdotes.' Adam Mars-Jones, Observer 'Sedaris' anecdotes play off his sublime talent for turning the absurdly neurotic into the hilariously funny.' GQ 'Howlingly funny, jaw-snappingly honest and endlessly perceptive... Sedaris' wellspring of quirky yet strangely universal comic experiences show no sign of drying up.' Tom Cox, Daily Mail 'The most popular American humorist since Woody Allen... As a prose stylist he is often compared to that other great New Yorker writer James Thurber - dry, mordant, pitch perfect. As a human being, the most obvious comparison is with the comedian Larry David.' Ngel Farndale, Sunday Telegraph It's a cracker. David Sedaris, acid tongued transatlantic humorist, knows his way around an opening line.' Andrew Collins, Word Magazine 'Reading this new collection of memoir-essay-stories by the master US humorist David Sedaris is like being tickled on the ribs by someone you love: you laugh hysterically, feel a mixture if excitement and irritation, and instinctively wiggle away as exhaustions sets in... Everyone of these 22 essays has something unique and extraordinary to offer.'Rebecca Loncraine, Independent 'His writing seems a perfect mirror of a confessional culture that revels in personal revelation - a self dramatising, post Seinfeldian talkshow culture which nothing is too embarrassing or too private or too trivial to recount... These pieces remind the reader of what Sedaris can do at his best.' Michiko Kakutani, Scotland on Sunday