These are Sedaris’ diaries from 1977 when he is in his early twenties, on through 2002. What I mostly learnt from them is that you can waste a lot of years on hard drugs and still end up achieving something with your life. I’m not really sure why I’ve been putting so much effort in. I also learnt that he had a lot of free time. It made me reflect on my own life. He has time to ponder very (and I do mean very) minor events, and write them up to mild comic effect. Having read quite a lot of his essays, especially in 2011, it’s interesting to see the raw material of his life that he massaged into money. Here’s an example of what formed the basis of the SANTALAND DIARIES. It’s from when he was working as a Christmas Elf at Macy’s. Here’s some men leaving the grotto:
“And, hey, Santa,” one of them said. “Look after our boys in the Gulf, will you?” He said it with such gooey poignancy, Santa and I laughed merrily after they’d left.
And here he is working as an entrance elf:
The job amounts to hustling up visitors, and I thought I did a pretty good job. “Patronize Santa,” I said. “Behold his chubby majesty. Santa was born and raised in a small home. Hail him. Santa’s patience is beyond your comprehension. Come test it.”
I tend to love a diary, for the intimacy it gives you with someone else’s life. These dairies are not like that. They hold you at arm’s length. But I didn’t mind. They were entertaining at a distance, which is quite how I like relationships in real life.