Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays
by David Sedaris
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Book Summary Information
Author: David SedarisEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1995-06-01
ISBN: 0316779423
Number of pages: 208
Publisher: Back Bay Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780316779425
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays
Book Review: This is the book I live my life by.
Summary: 5 Stars
I thought "Barrel Fever" was just about the funniest book I've ever read. The story by the same name kills me just to think about it... jeeezus, I'm at work and I can't laugh out loud right now but it's impossible to shut out a couple of chuckles just thinking about that guy's writing. His use of the comma in his literature is utterly hilarious! The game "Find Mom, find Mom's cigarettes," or (and I know I'll mess this up) the Wind-Blown Reporter saying, "I bet it really hurts to lose a home like that, a nice home like yours," just lends this kind of flow to people's sentences that sounds so damn realistic and by-the-wayish that I have to start laughing again. I was at a really boring lecture in medical school and one of my friends turned to me and asked me if I had anything interesting to read-- I turned around and gave "Barrel Fever" to her, and the rest of the hour was punctuated with loud sobs and brays of poorly-restrained laughter that disturbed all the serious little pre-doctors trying to learn about crudded-up kidneys.
At the risk of sounding snotty, I'll say this book isn't for everybody-- some people will find it bizarre or even dark, pessimistic, and perverted, but who always wants vapid happy-happy joy-joy humor anyway? David Sedaris tends to make fun of pretentious people who take themselves too seriously-- angry homosexuals (Glen), over-macho heterosexuals (Brude Springsteen, Mike Tyson), sickly-sweet bitchy housewives ("Season's Greetings..."), angry women types (Dolph's sisters in "Barrel Fever", the story), self-righteous anti-smokers ("Diary of a Smoker"), literary pseudo-intellectuals ("After Malison"), and I could go on, but I'm sure you've got the idea-- if you take yourself too seriously, or if the term "not normal" connotes something undesirable or bad to you, then don't waste your time. Go read a burningly affected, beautifully written book like "Cold Mountain," by James Frazier instead.
Summary of Barrel Fever: Stories and Essays
In David Sedaris's world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. Sedaris's collection of essays and stories is a rollicking tour through the national Zeitgeist: a do-it-yourself suburban dad saves money by performing home surgery; a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tries to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; a bitter Santa abuses the elves. With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behavior. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern life, and anything can happen.A collection of stories and essays by humorist and NPR commentator David Sedaris based upon his own experiences and the hidden perversity that can be found in Anytown, U.S.A. Here are images and blasphemies that nice people don't dare look at--blatantly exposed and told with the clear, casual voice of intimate knowledge. Sedaris' humor is born of compassion and his tales range from the sharing of cheery Christmas letters featuring infanticide, to experiences of the Gay and Famous (Charlton Heston and Elizabeth Dole, for example), to the lives of siblings named Hope, Faith, Charity and Adolph and to alcoholics and chain smokers you can laugh with.
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