Holidays on Ice

October 6, 2008
FOR THOSE DREADING THE HOLIDAY SEASON, BESTSELLER SEDARIS (WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED IN FLAMES) MAKES LIFE A LITTLE EASIER WITH THIS RE-RELEASE OF HIS UPROARIOUS ESSAY COLLECTION, NEWLY EXPANDED FROM THE ORIGINAL 1997 EDITION. SEDARIS GETS THE MOST MILEAGE OUT OF CHRISTMAS, FROM HIS STINT AS A MACY\x81FS ELF IN \x81GSANTALAND DIARIES,\x81H TO COMPARING AMERICAN AND DUTCH HOLIDAY TRADITIONS IN \x81GSIX TO EIGHT BLACK MEN.\x81H IN \x81GJESUS SHAVES,\x81H SEDARIS RECALLS A FRENCH CLASS IN WHICH STUDENTS TRY TO EXPLAIN TO EACH OTHER, IN BROKEN FRENCH, THE CONCEPT OF EASTER: \x81GON THE EASTER WE BE SAD BECAUSE SOMEBODY MAKES JESUS DEAD TODAY.\x81H THIS UPDATED VERSION INCLUDES \x81GTHE MONSTER MASH,\x81H POACHED FROM WHEN YOU ARE ENGULFED, IN WHICH SEDARIS SPENDS HALLOWEEN AT THE MORGUE; AND \x81GTHE COW AND THE TURKEY,\x81H A NEW STORY FEATURING THE SECRET SANTA WOES OF BARNYARD ANIMALS. LONGTIME FANS WILL BE HAPPY TO HAVE ALL SEDARIS'S HOLIDAY STORIES IN ONE VOLUME, AND THOSE WHO'VE MANAGED TO MISS THE LITERARY FUNNY-MAN COULDN'T GET A BETTER GIFT.

September 29, 1997
Here are six Christmas tales sure to please readers new to humorist, playwright and NPR commentator Sedaris--and likely to disappoint his devotees. The three best pieces are reprints from his earlier collections, Barrel Fever and Naked. In "Dinah, the Christmas Whore," young David's 18-year-old sister befriends a prostitute and brings her home one night during Christmas vacation. In "Season's Greetings," a housewife facing homicide charges keeps her loved ones up-to-date on the case in a detailed Christmas missive. In the hilarious "SantaLand Diaries," Sedaris relives his short career as a Macy's department-store elf. In this memoir, the flagship of the collection, we see Sedaris at his wide-eyed best as he takes the SantaLand name of Crumpet, falls for an elf-Casanova named Snowball (as do "three Santas and five other elves") and discovers the seamy underside of the Christmas industry. Compared to the fully realized "Diaries," his three new sketches look very thin indeed: a splenetic theater critic pans the season's local school pageants; a TV producer tries to convince an Appalachian congregation to let him buy the weird life story of one of its members; two grasping, well-to-do families sacrifice everything, including non-vital organs, to out-give each other at Christmas. Sedaris never makes these one-liners pay off. Still, flashes of his customary brilliance, particularly as the critic ("In the role of Mary, six-year-old Shannon Burke just barely manages to pass herself off as a virgin"), will keep this too-slim gift book from disappointing neophytes who find it in their stockings.

August 1, 1997
Christmas laughs old and new from the comedian who made his name with "The Santaland Diaries.