Humorist, Essayist,
Author, and Contributor to Public Radio’s This
American Life
The wry and the heartfelt
join in David Rakoff's prose to resurrect that most-neglected
of literary virtues: wit. “Looking like a pug and sounding
like the love child of Dorothy Parker, Oscar Wilde and ‘All
About Eve's’ Addison DeWitt,” (Atlanta
Journal and Constitution), Rakoff's New York Times
bestsellers, Fraud
and Don’t
Get Too Comfortable, have established him as one of today's
funniest, most insightful writers. “Rakoff knows the incantatory
power of a story well-told, the art of keeping words aloft like
the bubbles in a champagne flute. He possesses the crackling
wit of a '30s screwball comedy ingenue, a vocabulary that is
a treasure chest of mots justes, impressive but most
times not too showy for everyday wear” (Los Angeles
Times).
A two-time recipient
of the Lambda Book Award for Humor, David Rakoff is a regular
contributor to Public Radio International's This
American Life and The New York Times Magazine, a
correspondent for Outside, and Writer-at-Large for GQ.
His writing has also appeared in Vogue, Salon,
Seed, Condé Nast Traveler, The New York
Observer, and Wired, among others. He recently contributed
the essay on Utah for the 2008 book State
by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America and is working
on a new book entitled Half Empty.
David Rakoff has
worked in theater with David and
Amy Sedaris on their plays Stitches, The Little
Freida Mysteries, The Book of Liz, and the Obie award-winning
One Woman Shoe. He has portrayed Lance Loud and
poet Vladimir Mayakovsky, and can be seen in the films “Capote,”
(fleetingly) and “Strangers With Candy” (fleetingly;
mutely).
•••
“Like
a whore with a heart of gold, David Rakoff says all the nasty
things we want to hear and then reveals that, actually, it's
all about love.”
— Ira Glass
“Rakoff's
strength is in the turn of phrase that deftly and wittily dissects
its subjects at a stroke.”