Barell Fever By David Sedaris Stories and Essays

Okay, now, here is a book that I had to push through and yet at the same time it was the same as (forgive the waaaay overused comparison) some horrific accident and I just could not look away. The book itself is not a story, but rather a bunch of short stories and essays. The stories themselves at times I found myself shaking in fear, disgust, and utter disbelief. Mostly because I found myself thinking.. No way, that would never happen, and then pausing to say well… looking at the news and internet news a lot of similar stories I could totally see happening. I’m not sure what David Sedaris was trying to tell the world when he wrote this book, but the critics on the book say he “finds humor in the blackest of scenarios.”  “shrewd, wickedly funny… one of America’s most prickly, and most delicious, young comic talents.” I wonder if I just have the wrong sense of humor to understand the humor in this book. I really don’t fine the stories funny, rather I found myself trying to laugh instead of bursting out in horrified tears at a few of these short stories and what goes through these characters minds as each reveals their tale. I will say the author really, I mean really knew how to make his tale as graphic and real in such a short amount of pages. The internal voices of the characters painted a picture of cheap plastic America, rotted linoleum floors, greenish yellow skin, dirty finger nails, burnt out apartment buildings, desolate oil streaked garages, packed overflowing oil stained garages…and he did not use these descriptions, but just reading and seeing what his characters went through and what they were doing I just saw these images. The tales themselves could become full length real life movies, or be some poor slobs lot in life. Really, this book was like the classic Aristocrat joke without the punch line at the end… was it for me? Not really, would I read it again? Probably not, could I not stop telling my husband about the stories? No, I just had to share the stories because they were just so.. physically existing.