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Barrel Fever

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Barrel Fever

By: David Sedaris
Narrated by: David Sedaris
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About this listen

 In David Sedaris's world, no one is safe and no cow is sacred. A manic cross between Mark Leyner, Fran Lebowitz and the National Enquirer, Sedaris's collection of stories and essays is a rollicking tour through the American Zeitgeist: a man who is loved too much flees the heavyweight champion of the world; a teenage suicide tried to incite a lynch mob at her funeral; and in his essays, David Sedaris considers the hazards of rewards of smoking, writing for Giantess magazine, and living with his scrappy brother Paul, aka 'The Rooster'.

With a perfect eye and a voice infused with as much empathy as wit, Sedaris writes and reads stories and essays that target the soulful ridiculousness of our behaviour. Barrel Fever is like a blind date with modern life - and anything can happen.©1998 David Sedaris Entertainment & Celebrities Literature & Fiction Satire

Critic Reviews

So often Sedaris's phrasing is beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism...His life is extraordinary in so many ways - the drug addiction, the eccentric family, the crazy jobs, the fame, the globetrotting - but one of the more unlikely achievements here is in making it all seem quite ordinary. Ultimately, his masterstroke is in acting as a bystander in his own story
He makes me laugh so much. In an era when US satire is outpacing our own he's a sharp, humane and hilarious voice that never fails to make you smile - and sometimes weep. Apparently effortless humour is difficult, and precious. He's the real thing (James Naughtie)
A deadpan, darkly comical portrait of the American underbelly . . . Sedaris shares something of [Alan] Bennett's detached curiosity, and they both have a thirst for amusement (Craig Brown)
I don't very often find myself moved by a book to emit loud noises in public, but when I first read David Sedaris's essays and short stories, they made me laugh so hard I had to stop taking them on the tube. All his collections are good but 'Barrel Fever
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dont know if this was daves early day works but theres a bit of the magic missing. his observations that usually reveal so much about all our natures arent as sharp. the humors slightly more flat. still a great read and time. would just not recommend a new fan start with this one

less gooderer than his others

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