University students and aged NPR listeners alike gathered last Friday to hear best-selling humorist David Sedaris speak of his life in Tokyo, love for "The Zombie Survival Guide" and his unlikely friendship with a convicted child molester. As usual, he entertained his fans with his distinctive high-pitched voice and uncanny insights. This evening, however, was a little different: Sedaris had recently been accused of fabricating events in his essays.
In a New Republic article titled "This American Lie," author Alex Heard fact-checked Sedaris' popular autobiographical essays. According to Heard, Sedaris admitted to exaggerations: He had not been bitten by an old woman while volunteering at a hospital as a 13-year-old, for example, and his midget guitar teacher was not quite the jerk Sedaris made him out to be. Heard said Sedaris was misleading the public by labeling his stories as nonfiction.
Just weeks after the article was published, Sedaris bounded onto the stage at Charlottesville's Martin Luther King, Jr. Performing Arts Center, a small, bright figure in a white shirt against the red velvet curtains. In his subtle, sarcastic way, Sedaris struck back.
He began by confessing to the audience that everything he was about to say was true, but for two exceptions.
"In the second story, the 1982 Volkswagen Beatle was blue, rather than red," Sedaris said. "I changed the color because I had just used blue in a previous sentence."
In another story, Sedaris said he had changed a cashier's name from Elsa to Brenda. This was to avoid confusion, as his sister is also named Elsa. Fortunately, he quipped, he was able to convince the young woman to legally change her name.
"Play loose with the facts and people get hurt," Sedaris added. "Especially if you're writing a comic essay."
While Sedaris was able to play off his predicament with humor, his story is an example of a larger trend: Privacy, as we once knew it, no longer exists.
Heard, who once edited Sedaris while working for New York magazine, said in an interview that he noticed certain essays sounded too good to be true. He said he decided to take a closer look at Sedaris' stories following the James Frey fiasco over his fictionalized autobiography, "A Million Little Pieces." Heard added that he was careful to approach the investigation honestly but thoroughly.
"I tried to find people he went to high school with, I got pages from his yearbook," Heard said. "You find whatever you can. It took a lot of phone calls and e-mails."
After confirming his suspicions with multiple sources, including members of Sedaris' high school drama department and teachers at his elementary school, Heard approached Sedaris and his family.
"If I had tried to do this story 30 years ago, it would have been quite a bit harder to do," Heard said. "You need to be conscious, because the Web makes it easier for people to check up on you."
When Mark Twain wrote about his travels abroad over 100 years ago, no one dreamed of checking whether his quotes were correct. Today, one must merely peruse the Yellow Pages or do a little Google-ing to find the facts.
For students considering a career in comedy, or simply hoping to hold a job one day, Sedaris' story serves as a lesson: Don't exaggerate too much, and keep a watch on your Facebook profile.
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