Now We Are Five (TOW #1)

David Sedaris is an american writer notable for his dry and self-deprecating humor. His notable works include a variety of radio contributions for National Public Radio, as well as many books, including 5 New York Times best sellers. This dry and comic tone is present in the way Sedaris recalls his sister's death.

Sedaris Writes his essay Now We Are Five on his experience of losing his experience of losing his younger sister Tiffany. The essay is directed toward both those familiar and unfamiliar with losing loved ones. This is displayed through his vivid description of the family's dynamics and how they are affected by the death. However it is reasonable that the essay may be directed more towards those already familiar because he does not take a great deal of time to explicitly describe how he and his family members felt.

The essay which is written in the time after his sister's death provides a small bit of information about Sedaris’s sister and their childhood. He shares that his sister was a troubled child and sent to a reform school, and since that point she was not very close with her family. At the point of her death Sedaris had not spoken to her in eight years. This information however, only makes up a small amount of the essay. The majority of the essay details a family trip to the beach, and rather than fixating largely on the way he felt after his sister's death Sedaris details the interactions between the members of his family. Because of this his sister’s death is mention far less than one would expected; his sister's death is hardly mentioned for the whole latter half of the essay. However Sedaris does recall his family members sharing stories. Sedaris himself seems to fixate on the idea that his whole identity has been changed. He was no longer one of six siblings, now he was one of five.

The combinations of Sedaris’s thoughts, the fact that he does not linger on about his sister's death, as well as his his matter of fact and almost demeaning description of his sister can make him seem cold however this is not correct. Sedaris essay is a very accurate representation of a family after the loss of a loved one. He perfectly captures the numb and distant mentality of his family and portrays the deaths effects masterfully. He also shows the way that a loved one's death can act as a catalyst that causes one to realize things about themselves.

This image is similar to the dry tone that Sedaris uses to tackle a topic like death.