What inspired your most recent collection,
Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary, and
is it a departure from previous works?
I like audio books. Somebody gave me — oh, I
don’t know, maybe about seven or eight years ago — it
was a collection of South African folktales. And so I
was looking forward to it. And they were just so lame,
just really lame. Like, ‘the giraffe and the hyena. The
giraffe married a hyena. And then on the wedding
night he tore her throat out. Be careful who you
marry!’ You know, and I just thought, ‘Oh my god, I
can do better than that in my sleep.’ So I just started
writing these little — I hesitated to call them fables,
because fables have morals, and these don’t always.
But also I thought, you know, Aesop and a lot of
those fables, they were moral tales for children, so
somebody’s really, really good and somebody’s really,
really bad. But we just kind of don’t live in that world
any more. You know, now the man murders a little girl
who lives next door and then you fi nd out that he was
sexually abused as a child and she was kind of asking
for it (laughs). So in a lot of the stories (in Squirrel
Seeks Chipmunk) everybody’s bad and you kind of have
to choose, like, ‘okay, who’s worse here?’
And I think what I liked about them was that, if
you’re writing a story with human character there’s
just a lot you need to — you know, even giving
somebody a name, giving a character a name says
so much about that character. But if you’ve got the
squirrel and the chipmunk, it’s fantastic, you know,
because people aren’t bringing their name judgment
into it. But if I were reading a story and it was “the
man and the woman,” that gets on my nerves fast.
And also, with the squirrel and the chipmunk,
everybody knows what a squirrel and a chipmunk look
like. I mean, there are subtle variations, but you don’t
have to describe — you know, if, like, the squirrel has
a little white around the eyes, you don’t need to get
into that.
So really, by the second line you’re into your
story. You can already move into the action of your
story. Whereas in a traditional story it’s going to take
sometimes a page or more before it kind of — you
know, you’re going to spend a lot of time setting it up.
So, there was something about that I liked. And also
it’s a genre that pretty much calls for brevity, so you’ve
got to tell your story fairly quickly.
How does the U.S. look from your home in
England? (Sedaris grew up in North Carolina,
but several years ago moved abroad with his
boyfriend Hugh Hamrick, first to France and,
more recently, England)
It looks scarier — things look a lot more hopeless
from over there than they do here. Because from over
there, I mean, it can seem like, okay, the conservative
thing in the United States is out of control and it’s
really scary. But then, when I come here — because
I’ve been doing these readings and the people I’m
talking to — it’s like, ‘Oh, there are lots of sane people
left. Like not everybody’s crazy.’
Which is the idea you can get from abroad when
you’re following the American political scene…
Hugh, my boyfriend, he can tell you everything about
the coalition government in England, and he doesn’t
know who Michelle Bachman is. But I was never able
to make that leap. I can’t stop caring.
I mean, sometimes, when it looks like things are
going really bad, I think, ‘Okay, fi ne, fi ne, I can get my
British passport tomorrow if I want it. I have my green
card, and any time I want my passport I can get it. And
so I can think, like, ‘Okay, fuck you, you’ve dug this
grave for yourself.’ But I can’t stop caring.
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Would you ever consider moving back to your
homeland?
I would if I had to. I didn’t leave because I was
mad at the United States. I just always thought that if
I had an opportunity, and if I had the means, I would
want to live in other countries. I don’t want to live
in a hot place. Like, if I had to move to Thailand, I
would never stop crying — a hot, humid place. But if
I had to move to Poland I would say, ‘Great, when do
you want me to pack?’
You’ll like the weather in Eugene.
Eugene has — okay, it’s such a weird contradiction.
I’ve never seen more white people with dreadlocks,
and I’ve never seen so many barbershops. Have you
ever noticed how many barbershops there are in
Eugene? It’s crazy how many barbershops there are.
Your writing is very satirical and sometimes
considered taboo-breaking or un-P.C. How do you
find a balance between propriety and revelation?
What’s interesting to me is when people are like,
‘Yeah, I want you to comment on that. Like I want you
to make fun of those Republicans and stuff.’ That’s
fantastic. But the second you make fun of them… And
it’s like, yeah, but that’s who I am. I’m the person who
makes fun of people.
I went to China last year. I never liked Chinese
food. So then I went to China, and I really didn’t
like Chinese food. And I read it out loud (“Chicken
toenails, anyone?” The Guardian, July 15, 2011). Then
there was an article, it got printed in the Guardian in
England. Somebody wrote this article as long as mine
saying that I was a racist. And the gist of this thing is
like — I didn’t read it (laughs), my boyfriend read
‘STRAIGHT PEOPLE DON’T WANT TO GO AND HEAR ABOUT YOU
GIVING A GUY A BLOWJOB WHILE HE’S SITTING ON THE TOILET.’
Are there any subjects you consider off limits in
your writing?
Sometimes people will say, ‘Oh God, don’t you
have any shame.’ It’s like, what do you think you
know? I don’t mind writing that I’m in a doctor’s
waiting room in my underpants. That doesn’t bother
me at all. But I would never write about sex. I never
write about having sex. I never write about sitting on
the toilet.
I feel really bad for women in the movies now. It’s
this whole thing, they show women on the toilet in
movies all the time now. And I always think, if I was
that actress I would say, ‘You know what? Take your
money and shove it up your ass. I’m not going to
sit on the toilet.’ Nine times out of ten it’s not even
necessary.
Now, I’ll write about somebody else on the toilet
in a heartbeat. (Laughs) I’ll write about somebody
else having sex, sure, but not me. I think part of it is
because I read out loud so often, and when you’re
on stage, if I’m reading about, let’s say, sitting at the
dinner table, then everyone pictures me sitting at the
dinner table. And if I read about riding a bike, they
picture me on a bike.
So if I read about having sex with someone, then
they’re going to picture me doing that. And it’s like,
there are people you’d want to picture doing that, but
I’m not one of them. I mean, I kind of respect people
who will write about that and talk about it. I admire
them, in a way… because that’s really putting yourself
out there.
Well, I don’t know, it’s just a weird thing to say,
but it’s not my subject (sex), so I don’t write about it,
right? But at the same time, if I did write about it my
audience would automatically be so much smaller, and
my audience would be just a gay audience. Because
straight people don’t want to go and hear about you
giving a guy a blowjob while he’s sitting on the toilet.
Now, I don’t think that’s fair, because I grew up
in the Raleigh public library. There were no books
about homosexuals. And if I got a book, I would skim
through it — you know, like a straight couple having
sex, I would scan and skip ahead, but it didn’t make
me think, ‘Oh, no, I’m not gonna…’ I had to relate
to those characters because they’re human and I’m
human. I didn’t have a mirror. I couldn’t say ‘I will only
read about characters exactly like myself,’ because that
would have meant not reading. Now your book can be
a mirror… but I think you lose out when you do that.
it for me and then just kind of summarized it, so I
could be wrong, I never read anything about myself
— my understanding of it was like, you know, ‘Why
didn’t you write about the long tradition of Chinese
medicine. Why do you have to focus on the turds?’
Because that’s my subject! Turds are my subject!
If I see a turd, and if I see a begging child, and if I see
a pot of gold, I’m going to go for the turd every time.
That’s who I’ve been all my life. That’s who I am.
I went to the Philippines. And the Philippines is
really a messed up place, and I had a fantastic time.
It’s different. The Philippines is a poor country, you
know. China is not a poor country any more. China
is a grown-up. They can take care of themselves, you
know? So if I want to write about turds in China,
China’s a big boy, China can take care of itself. It
wasn’t on the same level as picking on a poor country.
I was asking people for jokes on my tour last
year… You know, I said I want all jokes. I said,
‘Tonight I want gay jokes. I want people to tell me gay
jokes.’ And people were holding back, holding back,
holding back.
And then sometimes they told gay jokes that were
just like — you know, I would thank them for telling
me, but sometimes they just weren’t that funny.
Other times — I mean, like, somebody said, ‘How
are fags like tumbleweeds? They blow, and they blow,
and they blow, until they wind up stuck to a fence in
Wyoming.’
I was like, ‘That’s fantastic.’ I am so glad to know
that joke. I was glad to know it’s out there, and it’s not
a bad joke. I mean, you know, it’s a hard joke, but it’s
not an uninteresting joke. I mean, sometimes you just
have to hand it to somebody. Even if they’re making
fun of you.
You said you have eight new, unpublished stories
you’re reading on this tour. Do you work with a
set list? What can Eugene expect?
Sometimes you think, ‘Gosh, these people are
with me. I’m going to try something I’ve never read
before.’ I feel safe trying something new here. So
sometimes I change my list when I’m up there. I
always sign books beforehand and after.
And so sometimes beforehand I’ll meet somebody
and alter my playlist according to them.
An Evening with David Sedaris takes place 7:30 pm Thursday, Nov. 3, at
Hult Center; tickets at hultcenter.org or 682-5000; $27.50-$39.50.
EUGENE WEEKLY OCTOBER 27, 2011 21