8: Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk, by David Sedaris (2010 hardcover)

I've read everything David Sedaris has published, look forward to his pieces in The New Yorker, and go to see him every couple years when he performs on campus.  So, I'm a fan.  And, when his recent book came out, I didn't even read a review or glance at the book jacket; I bought it on first sight.  I picked up the book a couple months ago on a rainy afternoon, anticipating settling in with a good friend, and was instead met by a stranger.  Simply put, on first impression this book is nothing like any other Sedaris publication.

I'm not saying I didn't enjoy it that first time.  Indeed, I read the first two anthropomorphic fables in the collection--"The Cat and the Baboon" and "The Migrating Warbler"--smiled a bit, scratched my head, and put the book aside. Another couple books got piled on top of it, giving me something to focus on while the puzzle of the new Sedaris book worked itself out in the back of my mind. Finally, unwilling to betray my fandom, I recently decided it was time to try it again, and this time I was ready. Instead of seeing these stories of animals as something foreign and different, on my second approach I recognized that the ironic magnifying glass which Sedaris trains on his family, friends, and himself, is still focused on the same subject manner in these fables. Indeed, the animal protagonists and antagonists share the same foibles and fears as characters do in the human world.  I wouldn't exactly say that there is a self-evident moral to every story, a la Aesop, but underneath the fur and feathers you'll certainly recognize a few folks that you know.

Maybe it was because I was ready, but the third story of the collection--the "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" of the book's title--captured me immediately, providing a tale familiar to anyone who has been in or knows someone who's been in a mixed-species (or race, or religion, or...) relationship. The (expectedly) horrible behavior of the crow in "The Crow and the Lamb," the selfishness of the cow in "The Cow and the Turkey," and the foolishness of one of "The Parenting Storks" will surely remind readers of some members of the human species.  Quite frankly, "Hello Kitty" offers the absolutely best cat-in-prison AA story that I've ever heard.

In the end, I was happy to discover that underneath a new genre--and handsomely illustrated by Ian Falconer, author/illustrator of the wonderful Olivia the Pig children's books--lurks the same Sedaris stories that fans enjoy.  And, I can assure you that I will never look at an Irish Setter the same way again.