Me Talk Pretty One Day

Read Yes
Length 272
Quick Review As one of the most prominent contemporary authors, he has a unique voice filled with poignant moments and an outrageous sense of honest that will leave you laughing.

I have read several of David Sedaris’ articles in The New Yorker since I have a subscription and he is a regular contributor. Coincidence? I think not. Other than that, I just knew his name. I highly recommend him to anyone who likes to laugh and is not afraid of the perverse. My only complaint is his unfortunate habit of forsaking the oxford comma. I don’t know if it’s political, his publisher trying to save money on ink, or his rebellious nature, but it bothered me immensely.

This is not one of his recent books; it was published in 2000. So I am late to join the Me Talk Pretty One Day party. Oh well I’m here now. It is a memoir recollecting time from childhood as one of six children through his present (meaning 17 years ago present.) He has a wonderful sense of humor. I rarely laugh out loud when reading, but I did often causing my dog to jump and look at me funny.

Sedaris talks about his time as a child having a lisp. In order to teach his speech therapist a lesson he took to the thesaurus learning how to dodge the ever looming ‘s’ giving him a large vocabulary. I would surmise this adolescent subversion has aided his writing career and later helped him dodge the ever present difficulty of gendered nouns in the French language.

I would like to think Sedaris could see the future when he noted (predicted?) nachos at the movies was a gateway to hot dogs, hamburgers, and full blown meals with cutlery… Way back in 2000, he didn’t know then that the theater-restaurant would exist less than two decades later. What else does he know?

Me Talk Pretty One Day is one of my favorite reads this year. I’m looking forward to picking up more of his work. He also inspired me. He showed me at 26, I have not wasted my life because at my age he hadn’t even finished college, but he had started and stopped twice. So there’s still time for me to be a success! Although, I will skip the methamphetamine stage.

Memorable Quotes
“Although I had regularly petitioned for a brand-name vacuum cleaner, I’d never said anything about wanting a guitar.”
“To me, one of the greatest mystery of science continues to be that a man could father six children who shared absolutely none of his interests.”
“I don’t know who invented the template for the standard writing workshop, but whoever it was seems to have struck the perfect balance between sadism and masochism.”

Title: Me Talk Pretty One Day
Author: David Sedaris
Publisher: Little Brown and Co.
Copyright: 2000
ISBN: 9780316776967