BOOKS | Review of Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) | David Sedaris | Little Brown.

Theft by Finding: Diaries 1977-2002.

It took me a very long time to get through this book.

That’s not a criticism. For a couple of weeks, Theft by Finding went with me everywhere. It was comforting to be able to dip in and consume a single, short entry, despite the relatively large size of the tome (a hardcover as thick as a brick).

A lot of it was about David spending time at various IHOP locations.

That’s an extreme oversimplification, but the abundance of time spent at IHOP is definitely worth note. Read an excerpt entitled “The IHOP years” here (from The New Yorker).

I’m not sure how I feel about the diary as a literary genre.

Diaries can be compelling, sure. And they can be boring. And from personal experience, I can say that whatever was compelling about certain diaries can fade in time. For example, in my 20s, I was extremely taken with the unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath (2000). [Here’s an interesting piece from the British Library on the Plath, by the way.] Now, however, the appeal has faded. I can’t remember what I was looking for when I read that text so obsessively.

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) is the first of what I believe will eventually be a two-volume set. And it feels like a different beast entirely. For one thing, it’s Sedaris’ own edited compilation, not a post-mortem. And in the introduction, he admits to being selective, leaving out much from the early years, for example, which he says read like the ramblings of a meth head.

For this, I am grateful.

At the same time, I wonder what else he’s cut.

For context, there is extremely little about his long-time partner (Hugh Hamrick) in the book. (Though the few mentions of him around the time of their first meeting in the 1990s are very sweet and fairly electric.)

I get it. If it was me, and if my diaries were the ones being published, I’d probably be pretty selective as well. I’d want to preserve a little of my privacy. So I don’t quite know why some part of me wants Sedaris to be any different.

Since I now live in Durham, NC, the very area where Sedaris is from and where much of his family still lived at the time when these diaries were written, I was riveted by any mention of Raleigh and the general Triangle area.

The blatant racism of the south is on full display in this book.

As is the homophobia, misogyny, and classism of the north (or perhaps of everywhere), but especially on display during Sedaris’ time in Chicago. And sadly, many of Sedaris’ observations are deeply fat-phobic, though you can sense that he thinks of himself as a progressive individual. (Give me a book without fat phobia and I’ll give you … money. Lots of it. Except, almost no such books exist, so I think I’m safe.)

While reading, even though parts of the text were certainly laugh-out-loud funny, I was often depressed by the interactions Sedaris describes. He seems a magnet for abusive, mentally disturbing encounters with unsavoury or unhappy individuals. Was this just what the world was like? Is it something about Sedaris that invites these encounters in particular? I was a child during the 1980s, so it’s not really for me to say. Sure, I grew up in an urban environment, but by virtue of being a child, I was obviously sheltered.

I could go on and on about this book. It’s all over the place.

I laughed, I was bored, I was disturbed. That said, I’ll try to boil it down: I enjoyed Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002). It’s the sort of book that will make you interrupt your spouse to force them to listen to bits aloud.

At the same time, on some level, it feels lazy.

Clearly, editing the vast verbiage Sedaris has produced over the last 30 years was no small feat, but I still wanted more. I wanted more real writing. More craft.

I found myself wishing that rather than publishing these diaries, Sedaris had simply mined them for the very best bits, and formed those into the sorts of essays he’s known for. Mentions of his one-time NYC neighbour Helen, for example, left me longing for the more formal essay “That’s Amore” (a story specifically about Helen and his relationship with her, from the book When You Are Engulfed in Flames, 2008). 

It’s been four years since Sedaris put out a classic essay collection.

Let’s Explore Diabetes With Owls came out in 2013, and before that, he gave us the bizarre (and definitely not-for-everyone) Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (2010). 

 I’ll definitely be waiting fairly eagerly for the second instalment of Theft by Finding, but at the same time, I hope Sedaris puts out a classic essay collection in the meantime.

Theft by Finding: Diaries (1977-2002) came out on May 30, 2017. More book reviews and shit like that here.

The header image on this post shows Sedaris in 1980, in photos taken by a Jeffrey Jenkins (see The New Yorker for clearer versions). In these photos he reminds me so much of this dude named Ted who was in my MA program. It’s almost uncanny.

ETA 2018: Sedaris DID put out a classic essay collection in short order! Calypso was released in May 2018, and I review it here.