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Get Breaking News on your cellRe: David Sedaris and embellishing stories
10:24 AM Fri, Mar 30, 2007 | Permalink
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"If you've never embellished an anecdote to get a bigger laugh from your drinking companions, please stand up. If you've never lifted an emotional story from your kid brother's life or from a book you've read and then plugged it into your own narrative, you can stand up, too. If you're still sitting, stand up and join the other liars. Everybody embellishes and steals a little, and some of us do it a lot." |
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Comments
Posted by Bill M. @ 1:39 PM Fri, Mar 30, 2007
Dave,
I agree in general, disagree in the particular. I don't think Sedaris work EVER appears under the guise of nonfiction or journalism. Even when it appears in a newspaper. He's put readers on notice many, many times that he habitually exaggerates for humorous effect. That is, he's dis-guised his work.
The New Repubic writer who first raised this issue was, I think, being disingenuous. Or else he's naive beyond belief. Was he unaware of the kind of thing Sedaris writes? The Mark Twain Defense still stands. Twain frequently wrote for newspapers and solemnly claimed his stories were true. Nobody was taken in.
Posted by dave t. @ 2:29 PM Fri, Mar 30, 2007
Hey Bill, The Slate article points out that in the introduction to his 1997 collection Naked, Sedaris writes: "The events described in these stories are real."
Sounds to me like Sedaris, himself, says he's writing nonfiction.