David Sedaris: “Smart, caustic and, well, nice”

Humor writer brings sardonic wit to Billings, Helena and Spokane

On Stage

With sardonic wit and incisive social critiques, Sedaris has become one of America’s pre-eminent humor writers, skillfully slicing through cultural euphemisms and political correctness.

He’s the author of the bestsellers Barrel Fever and Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, and Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

His most recent book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, became an immediate bestseller and the audio version was a Grammy nominee for Best Spoken Word Album.

He wrote the New York Times-bestselling collection of fables, Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk: A Modest Bestiary (with illustrations by Ian Falconer). His pieces appear regularly in The New Yorker and have twice been included in “The Best American Essays.”

He and his sister, Amy Sedaris, have collaborated under the name “The Talent Family” and have written half-a-dozen plays, which have been produced at La Mama, Lincoln Center, and The Drama Department in New York City. These include “Stump the Host,” “Stitches,” and “One Woman Shoe,” which received an Obie Award.

Sedaris’s original radio pieces can often be heard on “This American Life,” distributed nationally by Public Radio International.

“Sedaris has hit upon the narrative equivalent of Pepsi, or the PlayStation, or oxygen, or the haircut: something that others in the world might actually want and find useful … He’s smart, he’s caustic, he’s mordant, and, somehow, he’s … well, nice,” writes Bill Richardson in the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Catch him in November:

Billings: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 2 at the Alberta Bair Theater (406-256-6052 www.albertabairtheater.org)

Helena: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 3 at the Helena Civic Center (406-447-8481 or www.helenaciviccenter.com)

Spokane: 7:30 p.m. Nov. 12 at the Bing Crosby Theater (509-227-7638 or www.bingcrosbytheater.com)