KARAMEL

Me Talk Pretty One Day

It begins with a North Carolina childhood filled with speech-therapy classes and unwanted guitar lessons taught by a midget. From budding performance artist to “clearly unqualified” writing teacher in Chicago, Sedaris’s career leads him to New York (the sky’s-the-limit field of furniture moving) and eventually, of all places, France. Sedaris’s move to Paris poses a number of challenges, chief among them his inability to speak the language. Arriving a “spooky man-child” capable of communicating only through nouns, he undertakes language instruction that leads him ever deeper into cultural confusion. Whether describing the Easter bunny to puzzled classmates, savoring movies in translation (It Is Necessary to Save the Soldier Ryan), or watching a group of men play soccer with a cow, Sedaris brings a view and a voice like none other. “Original, acid, and wild”—said the Los Angeles Times to every unforgettable encounter.

272 pages, trade paperback.
Little, Brown.
8” X 5.5” X .75”