Writer, humourist and radio columnist David Sedaris. Writer, humourist and radio columnist David Sedaris. (Little, Brown and Company/Canadian Press)

David Sedaris is famous for writing humorous essays that recount all manner of personal details. If popularity is any indication of skill, some would say he does it best. He’s the kind of writer who crosses over into celebrity status; the kind of writer who draws a diverse crowd. His first break was at a club reading, where he piqued the interest of then-Chicago radio host Ira Glass. That led to Sedaris recounting his experiences as a department store Christmas elf on National Public Radio in a broadcast of his essay “SantaLand Diaries,” which attracted substantial attention.

Since publishing his first book of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994, Sedaris has made it on to the New York Times bestseller list five times, thanks to the strength of collections such as Me Talk Pretty One Day and Dress Your Family In Corduroy And Denim. A regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine, he is the brother of comedic actor Amy Sedaris, with whom he has collaborated on several plays. The topics in his latest collection, When You Are Engulfed In Flames, range from his trash-talking geriatric neighbour in a New York City apartment building, to quitting smoking in Tokyo, to the characters in his village in Normandy, where he currently lives with his partner.

Hannah Sung spoke to him on the phone from his book tour stop in Ottawa.

Q: In this new collection, you claim your favourite look is essentially hobo chic, but at your reading you were wearing a bold combo of striped shirt and floral tie. Are you more fashion-savvy than you’d have us think?

A: No. It’s a Paul Smith shirt and it’s been stitched up more times than the American flag. It’s ancient and falling apart, but now men’s shirts — and I don’t know who decided this — but they’ve gone from 7 to 6 buttons. So if you bend over now, everyone can see your stomach. The buttons are too far apart. An alternative is to wear a t-shirt underneath, but I’m not that kind of person.

Q: Who is that kind of person?

A: My boyfriend Hugh.

David and sister Amy Sedaris at the opening of their off-Broadway play The Book Of Liz in New York City in 2001. David and sister Amy Sedaris at the opening of their off-Broadway play The Book Of Liz in New York City in 2001. (Scott Gries/ImageDirect)

Q: You write about the people in your life. Your sister Amy is in the public realm for her own reasons, but how does Hugh enjoy that level of fame?

A: He doesn’t care that I write about him. Anyone else in my family, I say, “Here’s a story and I want you to read it and tell me if there’s anything you want me to change or take out.” Hugh would rather wait until it comes out in The New Yorker. He knows that I’m not going to describe what he does in bed and what he looks like naked. He trusts me. When I go on a lecture and I’m reading in a theatre often there’ll be like, it sounds goofy, but there’ll be a security guy near me. It’s not that I need it or anything; it’s embarrassing. But people will often say, “Is that Hugh?” Like he doesn’t have anything better to do with his life to stand behind me as I read out loud.

Q: You draw long lines at your public appearances. Are you generally an extrovert, happy to make conversation with hundreds of strangers in an evening?

A: If tonight instead of going to the reading, I went to a party at a country club or something, it would be agony. It’s easy talking to people signing a book. You find out fascinating things and you’re allowed to ask people questions that you couldn’t at a party. At a party I can’t say, “Are those your real breasts?” I can’t say, “How old are you?” I can’t ask the sorts of questions that I can when I’m signing books. And you just find out little fascinating things. I enjoy that. When I’m signing books and I hand the book back on the other side of the table, you know the conversation’s over and I’m in control that way.

Q: Do any recent encounters with fans stand out?

A: There was a guy last night at the reading whose parents are from India. I saw him standing there, and I said, “Do you work at Canadian Tire?” And he didn’t, he had some grown-up job, but he said, “It’s funny, everywhere I go, people ask me to get them another size or just ask me questions as if I work there.” I’d never in my life talked to anybody with that problem! It was fascinating to me. I absolutely love it when I learn about something like that.

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I did a signing at Costco. If it hadn’t been sandwiched between two very well-attended events, I would have killed myself, but it wasn’t awful. It was interesting to me. Often, at book signings, I will ask, “Do you have any children?” This time I saw them — they were right there riding in the cart.

Q: How would you describe your attitude when it comes to career and ambition?

A: I meet a lot of ambitious people on these tours. I’ll meet someone who’s 20 years old who will give me a story and say, “I want to get this published. I wrote this and you’ll need something to read on the plane anyway.” That lets me know right there that their story is probably not very good and that their talent is for self-promotion. Instead of spending their time doing what they should be doing, which is writing, they’re promoting themselves. That said, I don’t know that anything’s going to happen for you unless you’re ambitious on some level. You have to announce it to yourself. I remember the day that I told myself that I wanted to be a writer. I’d already been writing for seven years. I was riding my bike in Raleigh, North Carolina and it got a flat. I got a new tire put on and I was riding home and I said out loud to myself, I want to be a writer.

I had been reading Bobbie Ann Mason while I was waiting to get my bike repaired, and I noticed how affected I was and I wanted to do that. I don’t fool myself that anything I write will change anybody, but [it’s worth it] even just to entertain somebody. I don’t mean it in a completely egotistical sense, although there’s that, certainly. I started writing when I was 20 — I was never in any hurry, I didn’t put a time limit on myself. I didn’t say that if I didn’t have a book published when I was 29 I would quit. Someone told me to write every day and when the time is right, someone will take notice and say, “Can I see your work?”

(Little, Brown and Company)(Little, Brown and Company)

Q: Is mortality a current theme in your writing?

A: Mortality is something that you can’t help but notice when you get a bit older. I’m not dead yet, but I’m more dead than alive at this point. [Laughs.] I don’t know about calling it middle age. If this was mid-life, I’d live to be 102. Mid-life is 20, OK? They don’t tell you that, see? [Laughs.] I don’t know that anybody can conceive of their own death, but when I spent a week at the medical examiner’s office in Phoenix, it became clear that the people I love are going to die. It was troubling to me. I think turning 50, you just become really invisible in a way.

On the one hand it’s good, especially if you want to observe people. But sometimes I feel like I could literally be invisible. Not that I was so visible before — it wasn’t like I wore hot pants — but it’s going from being this fuzzy shape to being invisible and that takes some getting used to. It makes you think, “Well gosh, I wasn’t invisible, like, 30 years ago, but did I really take advantage of being visible? Did I really appreciate it? Did I?” I don’t really think that I did. But there’s going to be a day that I have a book come out and nobody cares, and I’m going to say, “Wait a minute, did I ever appreciate it when people came to get their books signed?" And I think I did.

Q: In the notes of this book, it says that the events are “realish” — what does that mean?

A: There’s a story about going to Princeton during the Stone Age, which I didn’t do. I didn’t even go to Princeton during the Bronze Age. I gave the commencement speech at Princeton a couple of years ago and that is the speech I gave.

Q: So everything else is “real,” no “ish”?

A: 97 percent. That’s true enough for me.

When You Are Engulfed in Flames is published by Little, Brown and Company and is in stores now.

Hannah Sung is a writer based in Toronto.