Naked

The first three pages of this chapter are dedicated to an extended description of young David Sedaris’s life. He describes his family as immensely wealthy, attractive, intelligent, selfless, modest, and beloved in their community. The details he includes become more and more hyperbolic; he refers to his many servants, his otherworldly good looks, and the public’s obsession with him and his family. He offhandedly states that his sisters were recently kidnapped, but his father destroyed the ransom note: “We don’t negotiate with criminals, because it’s not in our character” (7-8).

This setup is revealed as an extended fantasy of young David’s. In reality, his family is middle class, but he longs for fabulous wealth, acclaim, and a high-born lifestyle. He often imagines that he is a long-lost son of aristocrats or that he will be kidnapped by a benevolent rich couple. His mother accuses him of being a snob while she cooks chipped beef gravy. Sedaris depicts her as sarcastic and gruff.

David has four younger sisters. When his mother discovers she is pregnant for the sixth time, David finds her crying. She says she’s not ready to have a sixth baby. He asks if she is “sad because [she hasn’t] vacuumed the basement yet” (10) and offers to help, but she replies: “No, I’m sad because, shit, because I’m going to have a baby, but this is the last one, I swear.