David Sedaris's sister Tiffany

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/21/13 at 11:54pm

She killed herself and he wrote about her in The New Yorker ...
and then there were five

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/21/13 at 11:56pm

... His article's getting a lot of coverage, but it reminded me of this, from nine years ago:
Sister in A Glass House

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 12:57pm

It's wrenching reading those two pieces back to back.

Posted: 10/22/13 at 1:43pm

Sedaris' pieces about his mom's death are heart-wrenching. That one about her going into the hospital knowing she'd probably never come out and ducking back into the house for one last cigarette....

[JerseyGirl2]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 1:45pm

It feels like he couldn't respect her desire to remain out of his writings, even after her death.

Updated On: 10/22/13 at 01:45 PM

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 3:18pm

That's kind of how I felt after I read the interview with Tiffany.

[AC126748]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 3:35pm

It seems that, for the most part, Sedaris DID respect Tiffany's wishes while she was living.

At the same time, Sedaris was under no obligation to respect those wishes. If he chose to write about her, then he had to accept the consequences of potentially losing their relationship. But simply saying "I don't want you to write about me" means nothing, and there's nothing a subject can do, so long as what's written/published is true.

[Phyllis Rogers Stone]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 4:01pm

Well, no, he wasn't under any obligation, but it does seem... I can't even really think of the right word... wrong? arrogant? I dunno, to write and publish things about people who don't want you to. But I think the point is that not everything written about the family is true in the first place, at least that's my understanding, so i guess short of suing her brother for libel, there wasn't really much she could do.

Updated On: 10/22/13 at 04:01 PM

[doodlenyc]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 4:08pm

Having lost my sister to suicide just a few years ago, this hit too close to home.

In his previous writings, I only remember him specifically referring to Amy as a sibling. The rest were part of "we"...am I wrong?

[AC126748]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 4:15pm

Arrogant? Perhaps. Writers (especially memoirists, like Sedaris) are inherently arrogant people, though. To some degree, you have to be, to feel that the story you're telling deserves to be told. As I said in my post, you sometimes have to weigh the consequences of losing a relationship in order to tell your story. And "your" story does include the people in your life, who affect it.

In his previous writings, I only remember him specifically referring to Amy as a sibling. The rest were part of "we"...am I wrong?

He's written essays that specifically feature his other siblings, e.g., "You Can't Kill the Rooster" is about Paul.

Updated On: 10/22/13 at 04:15 PM

[Broadway Baby8]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 8:06pm

Back in 2004, in a Time Magazine article, David said the following:

"I never thought that I wrote about my family that much. I guess I have. But my brother loves to be written about. My sister Tiffany told me years ago, "You can never write about me." Then she called six months ago and said she wanted to be in a story. She was worried people thought I didn't like her."

Full article:

http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,650720,00.html

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 10/22/13 at 11:32pm

That's sort of what Tiffany got at in the earlier article. She got a lot of questions from people when he left her out so that, as she put it, he was writing about her by not writing about her too. Full disclosure, one of my best friends was a friend of Tiffany's.