David Sedaris - Barrel Fever

Copyright 1994 by David Sedaris

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company

Hachette Book Group

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First eBook Edition: May 2009

Back Bay Books is an imprint of Little, Brown and Company. The Back Bay Books name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.

Grateful acknowledgment is made to National Public Radios Morning Edition and to the following publications in which some of these stories and essays were first published: Discontents, Glens Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2; Harpers, SantaLand Diaries and Diary of a Smoker; New American Writing, Firestone; and NY Press, SantaLand Diaries and Seasons Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!

ISBN: 978-0-316-03165-3

Fortunately, not every page of Barrel Fever will leave you laughing so hard that its impossible to breathe thank goodness for the droll but manageable Table of Contents but still, this is one of those Open at your own risk books. Barrel Fever is wacky writing par excellence: original, acid, and wild.

Michael Dorris, Los Angeles Times

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Praise for Barrel Fever: hilarious, lively, and breathtakingly irreverent

These hilarious, lively, and breathtakingly irreverent stories move way too fast to be summarized or described. They made me laugh out loud more often than anything Ive read in years.

Francine Prose,
Washington Post Book World

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Without the apercus in this collection we would just be animals.

Veronica Geng

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SantaLand Diaries is quite possibly the thirty-one funniest pages of text published in the past quarter-century. David Sedaris slays me.

Bruce Barcott, Seattle Weekly

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original, acid, and wild.

The stories in Barrel Fever are rare glimpses into the lives of grotesques residing on the most dysfunctional margins of America. With a mordant wit akin to Evelyn Waughs and the perceptive economy of William Trevor, Sedaris cross-pollinates humor and pathos to create some splendid, often emotionally disorienting moments. Poignant, bittersweet, relentless, these stories have a peculiar and worthy place in a society that perks up at the opportunity to pruriently observe or divulge all things private imagine Oprah with a sense of irony and a laugh track.

Hugh Garvey, New York Newsday

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Witty very but malevolent polished little marbles of misanthropy.

Sedariss touch is so assured that the final impression is not just comedy but pathos.

Dale Peck

It depends upon what you mean by gay. In the newer sense alternate lifestyle, if you will David Sedaris is gay. In the older sense gay Paree, gay caballeros, nosegay, Enola Gay, what have you Sedaris is about as gay as a picnic in Flanders Fields. Witty very but malevolent; the Alice Roosevelt Longworth of letters (If you cant say something nice, come sit beside me). The stories carry the day, polished little marbles of misanthropy.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

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Sedariss take is vastly entertaining.

NPR storyteller Sedaris chronicles a society slightly removed from the mainstream and characters who dont quite fit in with the masses. Throughout the collection, without slapping the reader in the face with a political diatribe, the author skewers our ridiculous fascination with other peoples tedious everyday lives. Life may be banal here, but Sedariss take on it is vastly entertaining.

Kirkus

Poignant, bittersweet, relentless.

Traveling through SantaLand and a million other classic slacker jobs (including, of course, watching daytime television), Sedaris proves himself the premier chronicler of the demeaning inanity of most paid labor.

Voice Literary Supplement,
Our Favorite Books of 1994

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Sedaris is particularly masterful at staging the psychodramas of youth, poignantly reminding us why a cruel world can also be such a funny one.

Elle

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These are the kind of stories you instinctively read really fast because they are so good and so naughty you feel certain someone will snatch them away from you.

Lynda Barry

so good and so naughty

Also by David Sedaris

Naked

Holidays on Ice

Me Talk Pretty One Day

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

When You Are Engulfed in Flames

To my mother, Sharon

I WAS ON Oprah a while ago, talking about how I used to love too much. Did you see it? The other guests were men who continue to love too much. Those men were in a place I used to be, and I felt sorry for them. I was the guest who went from loving too much to being loved too much. Everybody loves me. Im the most important person in the lives of almost everyone I know and a good number of people Ive never even met. I dont say this casually; Im just pointing out my qualification.

Because I know the issue from both sides, I am constantly asked for advice. People want to know how I did it. They want to know if I can recommend a therapist. How much it will cost, how long it might take to recover. When asked, I tell them, like Im telling you, that I have never visited a therapist in my life. I worked things out on my own. I dont see it as any great feat. I just looked at the pattern of my life, decided I didnt like it, and changed. The only reason I agreed to appear on Oprahs panel was because I thought her show could use a little sprucing up. Oprah is a fun girl, but youd never know it from watching that show of hers, that parade of drunks and one-armed welfare cheats. And of course I did it to help people. I try and make an effort whenever I can.

Growing up, my parents were so very into themselves that I got little love and attention. As a result, I would squeeze the life out of everyone I came into contact with. I would scare away my dates on the first night by telling them that this was it, the love experience Id been waiting for. I would plan our futures. Everything we did together held meaning for me and would remain bright in my memory. By the second date, I would arrive at the boyfriends apartment carrying a suitcase and a few small pieces of furniture so that when I moved in completely I wouldnt have to hire a crew of movers. When these boyfriends became frightened and backed away, I would hire detectives to follow them. I needed to know that they werent cheating on me. I would love my dates so much that I would become obsessed. I would dress like them, think like them, listen to the records they enjoyed. I would forget about me!

To make a long story short, I finally confronted my parents, who told me that they were only into themselves because they were afraid I might reject them if they loved me as intensely as they pretended to love themselves. They were hurting, too, and remarkably vulnerable. They always knew how special I was, that I had something extra, that I would eventually become a big celebrity who would belong to the entire world and not just to them. And they were right. I cant hate them for being right. I turned my life around and got on with it.