Funny ha-ha or funny-stupid

The question is when Sedaris' work appears in a newspaper, do our expectations change?

I don't see why it should. Sedaris' pieces frequently appear in The New Yorker, a magazine whose truth in reporting I value as much as I do the New York Times. However, I never mistake Sedaris' pieces for anything than what they are: humorist pieces on likely but improbable situations that may or may not have happened to the author. I agree with Jeff H; I don't see that any of it matters unless you're a character in one of his essays who's offended by Sedaris' portrayal. Most other people don't care. There's a reason why people who purchased Sedaris' books aren't flocking to the bookstores en masse demanding their money back. It doesn't take a genius to figure out why not.

Yes, but Robert,
Don't you like to pick up your daily paper or tune in the 6 o'clock news with the reasonable expectation that the folks aren't just making these things up?
The point of this debate is context: You bring one set expectations to David Sedaris, another to, say, Scientific American or the New York Times. The question is when Sedaris' work appears in a newspaper, do our expectations change?

Historically this is a debate that occurs at least once per generation. The charges that non-fiction is fiction and vice versa are as old as the hills ... and as boring!

Ever read the Bible? Some say truth, some say fiction. Doesn't take away from the fact that it's a good story of the human drama.

If one does not profess to be a journalist, truth is arbitrary and interpreted.

Let there be ambiguity!

Much ado about nothing. I am attracted to David's material for the very reason that it sounds and feels like a life experience anyone could have and David probably did have. There is much entertainment value in anticipating his next twisted comment as he relates in third party observer style what would otherwise be a non-event in most peoples' lives. David has a particular outlook, a knack for isolating fertile material and more than mere talent. He is a genius observer of our modern twisted culture. I take him very seriously and laugh with him. I have sympathy for those who prefer to attack him.

Thanks for writing, both of you Bills. You've given me the chance to re-frame the issue in simpler, clearer terms.

For Mr. Heard's outrage over Mr. Sedaris' fabrications to be credible, he basically has to move Mr. Sedaris out of the Mark Twain-James Thurber-Garrison Keillor humorist camp and into the Stephen Glass-James Frey-Augusten Burroughs journalist-memoirist camp.

The problem, as you note, is that 1) Mr. Glass claimed to be a journalist, and he committed what amounted to fraud, not just in fudging his magazine articles, but in lying to his editors, fabricating websites and sources, etc. Mr. Sedaris has never said he's a journalist, as far as I know. 2) As I note, both James Frey and Augusten Burroughs claimed to be writing autobiographies, while Mr. Sedaris, given ample opportunity to do the same, denied any such thing and said his writing wasn't "serious" enough even to be considered a memoir. What's more, Mr. Frey angrily defied his accusers, claiming to have documentary evidence to support his writing. In a subsquent book by Mr. Burroughs, he has inserted the disclaimer that some things have indeed been changed -- possibly because of the lawsuit Running with Scissors inspired, possibly because of the Frey uproar.

But in Mr. Sedaris' case, when directly challenged about his stories, he has repeatedly said that he stretched things. I heard him once at a reading simply state that the ending for the story he was about to read was something he "needed" for the story to work, it was what he honestly felt, but it wasn't what happened.

The "memoir" as a form has always been a little suspect about one hundred percent, dyed-in-wool, scientifically verified accuracy -- given its reliance on memory, after all. Increasingly, what we've seen in the publishing world is that the label "memoir" is primarily a lucrative marketing tool, a way to designate where the book gets shelved in the store (and where it gets tallied for the bestseller lists). Mr. Heard would probably have found much more material to investigate in any number of political or Hollywood celebrity memoirs. And he wouldn't have had an author who has fessed up and continues to fess up -- that he writes humor.

Beware,Jerome,
You've stepped onto that minefield that separates -- though just barely -- Journalists from other kinds of writers. You'll find the bones of Rick Bragg scattered out there.
The line seems to depend upon what writers say they are writing. Sedaris' sin seems to have been that he claimed, in some fashion, that what he was writing was "true." He did not, so far as I know, claim that it was journalism. Those who have read Sedaris know precisely what he's about, and it's never been journalism. They also know the difference between "truth" and journalism.

No. Because the last two aren't intentionally funny.

Good thing Mark Twain wasn't around. He'd have to explain that when he wrote "On the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut," he really wasn't confessing to killing hobos and stacking them like cordwood behind his house.

Seriously ... as much as I can be ... is it very common for people to confuse "humorist" with "journalist" or "memoirist"?