Sit down with Sedaris

• By ED CULLEN
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jun 20, 2008 - Page: 1E - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

David Sedaris scribbled his name into stock copies of his new book a few feet away from a caterer’s table of red beans and rice, salad and rolls set up in an adjoining room at Barnes & Noble on CitiPlace Court.

Employees from three other Barnes & Noble stores busied themselves with schedules and wristbands for the night’s big event — a book signing for about 1,000 fans and Sedaris’ reading from his new book, “When You Are Engulfed in Flames.” Sedaris autographed books and chatted with readers until past 2 a.m. Thursday.

The humorist, a small, affable man in tie, dress shirt, slacks and sensible shoes, scrawled an approximation of his name with an economy of strokes as he talked to an interviewer.

Sedaris talked about his marathon book tours, living in Europe, his partner, his family, gay marriage and why he decided against a movie based on his book, “Me Talk Pretty One Day.”

In interviews, reporters ask Sedaris’ opinion on anything to see what his agile brain will produce.

“I read the newspaper like everyone else,” he said. “It’s not like I was hanging out with Barack Obama and he told me stuff.”

For the last two weeks, at a rate of almost a new city a day, Sedaris has scrawled his name in thousands of books, met his fans and read to them. At Barnes & Noble, Sedaris, Pope-style, read from a second-floor balcony to fans standing on the floor below.

“Generally, I like book tours, but in connection with a bath tub,” he said. “I’m on a shower jag lately. Where’s my bath tub? What do you do if you have a baby you want to bathe? Do you give the baby a shower?”

Sedaris keeps a diary. From the diary comes grist for his essays. He produces a small, spiral notebook, pocket-size, and reads from it.

“There’s a Cajun Steakery,”  he said. “Did you know that?”

Because Sedaris draws on family and growing up in Raleigh, N.C., for some of his best stories, readers feel as though they know all about him, he said.

“The other night during ‘Questions and Answers,’ I told this woman, ‘You don’t know anything about my family.’”

His readers know only what he chooses to tell them, Sedaris said.