This is the second book from David Sedaris that I’ve read, and I figured since it had been sitting on my shelf for so long, and the cover image was so intriguing, it was about time I opened it. As I believe all of Sedaris’s books are, this one is a collection of essays or short stories, most of which are rooted in real life. I say most of which because there were several times, largely at the beginning of the book, where things were so outrageous, I couldn’t be exactly sure if they were real. Somehow, Sedaris manages to inject the same amount of humor and interest into mundane chapters as into the ones I thought couldn’t be real. The everyday is suddenly cast in a wholly new light when Sedaris gets his hands on it. I enjoyed spending time in his head, observing the world with his careful attention to detail and harsh introspection.

Part of the reason I was hesitant to read this book was that I was a little put off by the title and cover. What in the heck does it mean? Why is there a skeleton? What does this have to do with personal essays? And how could this possibly be funny? I found the title and cover art to evoke morbid thoughts about death, cancer, and burning alive, and I found myself frustrated that I was too obtuse to decipher the deeper meaning. I continued to feel this way through most of the book, but then the themes started to emerge and I realized everything I had suspected about death, cancer, and fire was smack on the nose accurate. Starting with a story about a rat on fire burning down a house, to life in Japan and the ashen ruins in the museum in Hiroshima, to a 300 year old skeleton hanging from the ceiling, to catching flies alive to feed to his spider, to his mother croaking to death of lung cancer, and to the day-by-day rundown of Sedaris’s mission to quit (finish) smoking – it all revolved around the same thing: death. I’m sure if I read the book again, I would discover even more references, but if you had only that description, the book sounds like quite a horrible one.

However, if you know Sedaris’s work, you will know that he can make even a book so filled with death and fire somehow laugh-out-loud funny. Sedaris is one of the very few authors who can actually do that to me, and this book doesn’t disappoint. Though each chapter is contained as its own story, Sedaris is a master of connecting the thread between chapters and throughout the book and bringing the themes into clear focus. He also doesn’t hold anything back. If you want a full frontal view into Sedaris’s life, where the mundane is fantastical, the vile is hysterical, and the honesty is brutal, this is the book for you. You will be engulfed in Sedaris’s flame.

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Created Feb 26, 2019 at 3:50pm • Submit your own review...