RETRO BOOK REVIEW--"Naked" is great

By JON HOCHSCHARTNER--

I love David Sedaris. This collection is as good an introduction as any to the humor essayist, recounting how his Greek grandmother took to washing her stockings in the toilet, summer camp discoveries of homosexuality, and a childhood obsessive compulsive disorder that sent him licking household appliances (and was only cured by taking up smoking). While generally I’m distracted in memoirs by dialogue and scenes that obviously have been partly if not wholely imagined, in Sedaris’ case, his writing is too funny and leaves me too cheerful to care. That said, I tend to stay away from the recorded performances of his work. What comes across as charmingly self-deprecating on the page can sound whiney when read in the author’s voice.