When asked if these stories are true, I prefer to say that they’re true enough. — David Sedaris, in preface to a live reading of “I Like Guys” (from Naked).
I love David Sedaris. I’m going to say that right upfront. He’s my favorite writer. I’ve read his books to tatters, and I generally keep one on the shelf above my tub just to have something to read when I don’t have anything on-deck when I go upstairs for a soak. You may think that my take on this is biased, knowing how much I admire his work. As usual, though, I have a slew of supporting arguments on this topic, so let’s dive right in, shall we?
Melville House posted a very tiresome blog post today. Apparently, yet another writer has flat-out lied about something in a context where the material was presented in earnest; now, the wolf-pack has decided that it’s time to take yet another look at whether David Sedaris, ubersuccessful author and alleged lying sack of shit, could be cut down to size for exaggerating–and, in some cases, outright fabricating–events that happen in his books.
He’s not even relevant to the incident that kicked off the “questions” about his work, except that he is also regularly featured on NPR. The original incident centers around a radio documentary that aired on NPR. The “documentary” apparently got a little fast-and-loose with some facts detailing conditions in factories that create Apple products–and by “fast and loose”, I mean that the guy who created it, Mike Daisey, totally made shit up and then allowed it to be presented as journalistic work. (He later claims, “I never intended it to be true! I meant it as theater!” Yeah, okay bro. You might have mentioned that ahead of time to someone at NPR. I bet they would have taken notice.)
Apparently, this somehow has extended to NPR taking a serious look at David Sedaris’s writing. Because taking liberties while writing humorous personal essays based on your own experience correlates exactly to writing a fake exposé on the treatment of workers by one of the most powerful corporations ever to exist. Yes.
NPR, I am disappointed in you for contributing to this asinine witch-hunt. I know you’re trying to cover your ass after the Daisey incident; I also know that you know people have spent inordinate amounts of time trying to prove that Sedaris makes things up, despite the fact that anybody who has read the work with even a slight sense of humor could tell you, duh, of course he made things up. So, NPR, I’m going to help you and all of the other serious business journalists out there. We’re going to get to the bottom of this “Sedaris making things up and what we should do about it” problem. You and me, together.
I would like to first look at this comment from the Washington Post article about David Sedaris’s “realish” stories:
In an interview, Glass said no one at his program was concerned about Sedaris before the Daisey episode. “We just assumed the audience was sophisticated enough to tell that this guy is making jokes and that there was a different level of journalistic scrutiny that we and they should apply,” he said.
You first mistake was that you stopped assuming that and gave into a few hysterical voices. Clearly, NPR always knew that the stories weren’t meant to be journalistic (unlike the Daisey monologue-turned-”documentary”). So, why the correlation now? Perhaps a response to cries of, “But, but–OMFG this story that happened forty years ago to people I don’t even know and that has relatively little impact on the course of history as a whole MIGHT NEVER HAVE ACTUALLY HAPPENED!” O noes! We must get to the bottom of this! As we all know, entertainment should always be 100% fiction or 100% fact.
A prime example from the article “This American Lie” by Alex Heard, which examines Sedaris’s stories in what Heard clearly thinks is an objectively critical manner, is the Dorothea Dix story. In “Dix Hill,” Sedaris details his experiences as a volunteer who helps care for the residents. Apparently, Sedaris just went and changed all kinds of details, including how the building looked, and his duties there. Sedaris admitted to Heard that he had made a significant portion of the story up. Heard’s judgment: that Sedaris said in the introduction that the stories are real, and that much exaggeration was unacceptable for a nonfiction author. Sedaris himself said in a 1999 interview, ”Everything in Naked was true. I mean, I exaggerate. But all the situations were true.”
Apparently, Sedaris did, in fact, volunteer at Dorothea Dix Hospital. That was a true situation. I hunted up the original interview in which he said the situations were true; I found the original context interesting:
GI: Is everything you write fact-based?
DS: There are some fictional things in Holidays on Ice. Everything in Naked was true. I mean, I exaggerate. But all the situations were true.
Perhaps I’m splitting hairs, but it seems that there’s a bit of a stretch between fact-based and factual. Movies are often fact-based, but we all know that they’re dramatized. Comedians do material that is fact-based, but we know that they’re writing for the punchline rather than trying to give the most accurate accounting of what happened. I think Sedaris made a mistake by including–or, if he didn’t write it himself, allowing it to be included–the note about the stories all being real. (Notice he didn’t use the word “true.” Just “real.” Tricky, tricky.) I also think he made a mistake by not fictionalizing the name of the institution if he was going to insert information that wasn’t factual, since it is a real place. I’m not personally torn up about it, but from the point of view of the dissenters, those could be classified as needing correction.
Although some of his stories take greater liberties than others, others are absolutely quite true. Sedaris’s books, overall, are no more wholly fiction than they are nonfiction, as Heard himself found out:
In the initial stages–after my early score with “Dix Hill”–I was surprised to find that some of the weirder billboard events checked out. When Sedaris was at college at Kent State in 1976-1977, he really did hitchhike from Ohio to North Carolina with a girl in a wheelchair (as described in “The Incomplete Quad,” from Naked). His account of Raleigh community-theater peccadilloes circa 1972 (“The Drama Bug,” Naked) was an accurate smackdown. And, though I had limited success checking the family stories– everybody but David, Lou, and Tiffany declined to talk to me–there was apparently an episode in which an unidentified family member smeared human feces on the household bath towels (“True Detective,” Naked).
Even stories that Heard took issue with–”Dix Hill,” “Midget Dreams, Giant Abilities”, “Go Carolina”, and “Naked” are the ones mentioned–are rooted in actual experiences that Sedaris had. Sedaris did volunteer at Dorothea Dix. Sedaris did briefly take lessons from a little person, even though “Mr. Mancini’s” personality seems to be a thing of Sedaris’s invention (and whose real name, I must hasten to add, none of us would now be able to link to the character if not for Mr. Heard–I’m sure the gentleman appreciates that exposure if he’s still living). Sedaris was in speech therapy classes. Sedaris really did go to the nudist retreat, and even based one of the characters in the story on a person that the director recognized from the description. Unlike woeful memoirist James Frey–who claimed time and again that his memoirs were factually accurate, while having written about things he had never experienced at all (like being in prison when he’s never actually been in prison)–Sedaris did, at least, experience the events he said he experienced. He has also always been the first to admit that he exaggerates. He even told the Times-Picayune he exaggerates “wildly.” This? Is not a man trying to put one over on us.
This brings me to a nagging question I have: when did “nonfiction” become “something that is absolutely true and 100% fact-checked approved”? I mean, granted, some books need to be true to maintain credibility. Books that present arguments or information as facts should be completely true–historical texts, political texts, scientific texts. Nonfiction encompasses a broad range of books, however. Cookbooks, for example, are nonfiction. Self-help books are nonfiction. Memoirs are classified as nonfiction, even though people who write memoirs often dramatize events to varying degrees to make them fit the narrative; memoirs also classify differently than “autobiography,” as a biography endeavors to be a factual account. To me, nonfiction doesn’t mean “absolutely factual” or journalistic in nature; it means, rather, “books that are not classified as fiction.”
I don’t consider his books to be fiction in the same way I’d consider novels or short stories, wholly constructed in the author’s head, to be fiction. I don’t think it’s fair to fiction authors to classify Sedaris’s memoir-type works as fiction. The process of writing fiction is wholly different than taking life experience and exaggerating it. If I were ever lucky enough to be on the fiction bestseller lists (which will never happen in any lifetime), I’d be pretty miffed if David Sedaris beat me out with work that he largely drew from his own life. Then the whole controversy would start all over again–”Why is David Sedaris topping bestselling novelists? He just writes down what really happened in his life and embellishes it! That’s not fiction! Harumph harumph.”
The Washington Post article discusses the dilemma at hand for NPR:
But the Daisey debacle has brought about a reassessment [of Sedaris's work]. Glass said three responses are under discussion: fact-checking each of Sedaris’s stories to ensure their accuracy, labeling them to alert the audience that the stories contain “exaggerations” or doing nothing.
I think fact-checking David Sedaris borders on absurd. Moreover, I’m not sure why people would want a factual recount over a story spun by a deft humorist. Sedaris excels at story-telling, not reporting. As for the last option, I’m tempted to say that it should be the best one, but clearly, this controversy will keep popping up until something is done. So let’s go with the middle one. Let’s put out the word that David Sedaris’s stories, while based on true life events, have been dramatized for narrative and comedic purposes. As far as categorizing his books, we’ll let him stay in the nonfiction category until the appropriate category has been invented (nonfiction entertainment, perhaps? Nonfiction storytellers? Dramatized nonfiction?). In the nonfiction realm, Sedaris competes against and coexists with writers who actually fit into his writing classification–humorists, memoirists, and essayists, many of whom also play with events to present the most entertaining story. If we changed him to fiction, he would be in a category with writers who have completely different content. I think this solution is quite fair.
What do you think? How should we handle the gray area between pure fiction and journalism-quality truth? Let me know in the comments!
Book: In One Person (Powell’s) (Amazon) (Kindle)
Book: A Series of Ordinary Adventures (
