On this date in 1956, author and humorist David Raymond Sedaris was born near Binghamton in Johnson City, N.Y., to Sharon (née Leonard), an Anglo-American, and Louis Sedaris. His father, an IBM engineer, was born in the U.S. to Greek Orthodox immigrants.

David’s Greek grandmother “kept a crucifix the size of a hand mirror in her bedroom and kissed it until her lips wore the plating off Jesus’ stomach. Cried when she saw Billy Graham on TV, even though she didn’t understand what he was saying. ‘Jesus blessie,’ she’d whisper, crossing herself whenever we passed a church, any church. Tie two sticks together and her eyes would water. My father had maybe a third of her faith, and his children, for whatever reason, none. (“The Hem of His Garment,” The New Yorker, Sept. 2, 2024)

He grew up in a suburb of Raleigh, N.C., the second eldest of four sisters and a brother. His sister Tiffany was plagued by mental illness and killed herself in 2013 at age 49. The last time he saw her, he shut his door as she stood outside it after a book reading because of a disagreement they’d had earlier.

“[W]e never spoke Greek at home, so I never understood what they were saying [in church]. I didn’t grow up with the idea of a punishing God, just a really dull one. So my idea of death didn’t really include an afterlife. The first person I knew to die was my grandfather and no one said, ‘He’s in heaven now.’ Every time I hear that, I just want to throw up. … It just seems so implausible to me. I don’t think my mother would necessarily want to be with my father for an eternity. The time on Earth was more than enough.” (Sydney Morning Herald interview, Oct. 14, 2022)

He attended Western Carolina University and Kent State University in Ohio, dabbled in visual and performance art and writing before moving to Chicago in 1983 and graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sedaris, slight of stature at 5-foot-5, massively impressed radio host Ira Glass while reading in a Chicago club a diary he had kept since 1977. Success on Glass’ show and in other venues led to his National Public Radio debut in 1992 reading his essay titled “Santaland Diaries” describing his experiences as a Christmas elf in Macy’s in New York.

The New York Times called the essay “a minor phenomenon” and he started recording regular NPR segments, signed a two-book deal with Little, Brown and writing essays for The New Yorker and Esquire. Several essay collections followed. “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” recounting life in Paris while learning French, won the 2001 Thurber Prize for American Humor. “Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim” reached No. 1 on The New York Times Nonfiction Best Seller List in June in 2004.

Essays and articles followed into the 2020s. In “Calypso” (2018), he wrote, “Increasingly at Southern airports, instead of a ‘good-bye’ or ‘thank-you,’ cashiers are apt to say, ‘Have a blessed day.’ This can make you feel like you’ve been sprayed against your will with God cologne. ‘Get off me!’ I always want to scream. ‘Quick, before I start wearing ties with short-sleeved shirts!’ ” (Essay, “Your English is so good”)

Sedaris has written several plays with his sister, actress Amy Sedaris, under the name “The Talent Family.” Speaking and book tours have taken him around the world. He and Hugh Hamrick, who met in 1990 when Hamrick worked as a theatrical painter and set designer, have been in a relationship since then and as of this writing in 2024 live in West Sussex, England.

After California legalized same-sex marriage in 2008, Sedaris commented that he and Hamrick were “the sort of people who wouldn’t get married. And I know a lot of heterosexual couples who are the same way.” He then mused about a possible exception: “I would get married so I would never have to hear the word partner again. I like the word boyfriend, but now people feel like they have to say partner to be correct, and I think no, no, no, he’s my boyfriend. It wouldn’t matter if I were 80, he’d still be my boyfriend. If we got married, I suppose he’d be my husband, but anything beats partner.” (Newsweek, May 29, 2008)

Sedaris was among about 100 comedians invited to meet Pope Francis in June 2024 to help the pontiff explore how the “art of comedy can contribute to a more empathetic and supportive world.” He told this joke at a formal dinner the night before the papal audience: “A cop stops a car two priests are riding in. ‘I’m looking for a couple of child molesters,’ he tells them. The priests look at each other. ‘We’ll do it!’ they say.

“Substitute rabbis or Baptist ministers for priests, and you’ll get nothing. I mean, the Catholic Church earned those laughs, and every time its senior clerics look away, or quietly send an offending clergyman to the back bench, it’s making this scandal larger than its ministry, at least to an outsider such as myself.” (The New Yorker, Sept. 2, 2024)

PHOTO: David Sedaris at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2018; Heike Huslage-Koch photo under CC. 4.0.