The unusual title introduces the readers to what awaits them. It is a joy ride packed into less than 300 pages. Each essay will surely bring a smile to your face, a chuckle to your throat and maybe even a laugh out loud guffaw! So, reader, kick back and settle down with this little book and enjoy many moments of pleasure.
Sedaris takes ordinary, mundane, everyday occurrences and turns them into events in which we can sometimes see ourselves and our own attitudes, at our best and our worst, but he enables us to laugh at ourselves and our sometimes not so admirable behavior and reactions.
Each story pokes fun at some ordinary moments in life and some not so ordinary ones, with a brilliant satiric wit, using subtle inferences which point out the inconsistencies and contradictions in our way of life. He enables the reader to find laughter even in life’s moments of grief.
He shares many of his own experiences with us by tackling many of the subjects we face, such as: homosexuality, politics, gay marriage, airline travel, healthcare, death, relationships, parenting, friendship, family, taxidermy, waiting on lines, drugs, menageries, crucifixion, the blind, diaries, colonoscopies and even the experience of eating in restaurants in China. He manages to find laughter in the most unexpected of places.
From the stuffed owl in the taxidermy shop to the tragedy of his sister’s death, Sedaris inspires the readers to laugh at life and themselves. He enters the reader’s psyche as he superbly reads his own book.