The Works of David Sedaris

[Nysha]

All of his siblings seem to have some issues, although none as bad as Tiffany, so I'm guessing that their childhood was not all that great.

[kostgard]

Nov 5, 2013 2:36:07 GMT -4 Nysha said:

All of his siblings seem to have some issues, although none as bad as Tiffany, so I'm guessing that their childhood was not all that great.

Yeah, I always figured things weren't great. A wackadoo sense of humor like Amy's got often starts as a defense mechanism. God love them for developing their humor, but it may have been based in not-so-fun stuff.

I can't really judge how David deals with things solely from his writing. That's what he presents to his audience to entertain, and it could be censored. I don't know how he deals with things in life.

[Deleted]

Nov 5, 2013 2:44:59 GMT -4 kostgard said:

I can't really judge how David deals with things solely from his writing. That's what he presents to his audience to entertain, and it could be censored. I don't know how he deals with things in life.

This is my take as well. He either only writes about the funny parts, or he takes the effed up parts and writes about them funnily. I am fine with that, maybe because I, too, have had a lot of family experiences where my only two options were to laugh or cry. I can totally see what you mean, though, chiqui. Problems being swept under the rug or history being rewritten both totally skeeve me out, and that's due to my childhood/family patterns as well. That's not how I see his art, though. We really have no way of knowing how much of his writing is about "processing" because it's also his work.

[chiqui]

Now I'm really curious about what Tiffany's problems were. The article sidestepped that.

[eveschmeve]

I believe Tiffany had serious mental health issues starting from when she was young. She was sent by her parents to a therapeutic boarding school when she was a teenager. Supposedly it wasn't a very good school and had a reputation for abuse, so who knows what happened there. I've read that she never forgave her family for sending her there, her siblings included.

[Laira]

Yes, he mentions in the story that Tiffany never forgave them, even though Paul was only 10 years old at the time, and Amy would have been in her teens.

I love The Santaland Diaries, it's one of my favorite Christmas tales.