Chapter 16: 2017 – Summary & Analysis of David Sedaris's Diary
⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.
Summary
The chapter opens in Honolulu, where Sedaris is flattered by an Israeli skincare salesman who compliments his style and persuades him to buy Dead Sea salts. In San Francisco, he and Ronnie play a game of one-upmanship over exhaustion with a cashier. Back in Rackham, Sedaris watches Westworld at the fitness center and is interrupted by an eleven-year-old boy asking for a Band-Aid; he lends the boy money to buy one. Dawn visits and tells a story about using soap to prevent charley horses. A phone call with his father leads to a discussion about drones and a rare conversation about his mother’s drinking. Sedaris reflects on a statistic about spiders and rescues them from his bathtub. He meets a young boy at a signing who tells a crude joke, and later hears a joke about a dog that kills a wife and mother-in-law. Travels take him to Arkansas, Texas, Las Vegas, Seattle, Alaska, and across Europe. A seatmate on a flight to Vegas picks his nose and eats his own secretions. Sedaris debates the London Underground’s switch from “Ladies and gentlemen” to “Hello, everyone.” A French couple making out on a train prompts a stereotype checklist. He picks up litter left by teenagers near his fitness center. In New York, a friend tells him about a complaint file against his use of “flesh-colored.” He ponders the ethics of child pornography and suggests using dead children. Travels to Ukraine and Moldova with Patsy reveal crumbling infrastructure and resilience. The year ends with a snowy birthday walk in Sussex, where no one offers him a ride.
Key Events
- Sedaris buys Dead Sea salts from an Israeli salesman who flatters him and invites him to imagine naked body scrubbing.
- A boy asks for a Band-Aid while Sedaris watches a nude robot scene in Westworld.
- Phone call with his father: Dad offers to buy him a drone and reveals he is incontinent, while also speculating that Sedaris’s mother drank because she felt old.
- Sedaris learns that one-third of Americans believe in ghosts and that spiders could eat all humans.
- At a book signing, an eleven-year-old boy tells a vulgar pizza/pussy joke.
- Travel to Ukraine and Moldova: Sedaris observes poverty, a flea market, a woman selling tangerines whose sign he buys, and a beggar with no hands.
- On his birthday, Sedaris walks in the rain and shouts at cars that splash him; no one offers a ride.
Character Development
David Sedaris continues to display his trademark blend of self-deprecation and sharp observation. He is both appalled and fascinated by human behavior—whether it is a seatmate eating his own secretions or a mother convincing her child she is invisible while naked. His willingness to engage with strangers, from the Israeli salesman to a boy asking for a Band-Aid, reveals a desire for connection tempered by a fear of awkwardness. His phone call with his father shows a growing empathy for his parents’ struggles, particularly his mother’s drinking and his father’s incontinence.
Hugh remains a steady, loving presence, playing board games and decorating the Christmas tree.
Ronnie appears as a traveling companion, and Dawn as a sister with a charming folk remedy.
Lou Sedaris (Dad) is revealed as lonely and grappling with his own aging, offering a drone as a gift and admitting to wearing adult diapers.
Themes, Symbols, or Motifs
Aging and mortality pervade the chapter: Sedaris’s father’s incontinence, his own surgical “eyes made from buttons” joke, and the beggar with no hands in Chișinău.
Cultural displacement is explored during the Ukraine/Moldova trip, where Sedaris notes broken sidewalks, thuggish men, and the incongruity of a five-star hotel in a poor country.
Language and power appear in the discussion of the London Underground announcement change and the use of “flesh-colored” as a term.
Humor as defense mechanism is evident in Sedaris’s jokes about exhaustion, surgery, and the dead children proposal.
The mundane grotesque is a motif: the seatmate eating himself, the catheter-urine story, spiders waiting in every room.
Why This Chapter Matters
This chapter captures the full range of Sedaris’s diary voice: alternating between tender family moments, surreal travel encounters, and deliberately provocative jokes. The 2017 entries show an author grappling with his own fame, his family’s history, and the world’s absurdities. The trip to post-Soviet states offers a rare glimpse of Sedaris outside his usual Anglophone comfort zone, blending poverty tourism with genuine curiosity. The birthday walk in the rain, unoffered help, underscores a loneliness that contrasts with the constant social interactions of his book tours.
Study Questions and Answers
1. Why does Sedaris buy the Dead Sea salts from the Israeli salesman, and what does this encounter reveal about his character?
Sedaris buys the salts partly because he is flattered by the salesman’s attention and partly because he imagines using them for spa night with Ronnie. The encounter shows that despite his cynicism, Sedaris is susceptible to vanity and persuasion. He later wonders if the salesman really liked his style, indicating self-doubt.
2. How does the phone call with his father in June advance the book’s themes of family and aging?
The call reveals Sedaris’s father’s loneliness and his speculation about Sedaris’s mother’s drinking. Sedaris’s father links her unhappiness to losing her looks, a view Sedaris dismisses as stereotypically male. The disclosure of incontinence humanizes Dad and deepens the portrayal of aging in the Sedaris family.
3. What purpose does the Ukraine/Moldova travelogue serve in the chapter?
It broadens the diary’s geographic scope and observes economic disparity and resilience. Sedaris’s interactions with locals (buying a sign, using Ukrainian phrases) show his curiosity, while the broken sidewalks and beggars contrast with his privileged life. The trip reinforces themes of inequality and the foreignness of everyday life in post-Soviet states.