Fact or Fiction?
Many of you may remember last year’s debate over David Sedaris’s work — fact or fiction? — an all-too-familiar debate these days for memoirists. Being a stickler for 100% truth in nonfiction (and feeling like the only one on the planet), I got a kick out of New York Magazine’s blurb on the subject, which notes that Barnes & Noble lists Sedaris’s new collection on its FICTION bestseller list (also noting that having sold more than twenty thousand copies of the book in its first week, Sedaris probably isn’t complaining).
Sedaris has recently labeled his work “97%” true, which to me isn’t nonfiction — but at least he’s admitting that he embellishes and invents. Which most of his readers already know (and likely don’t mind).