Pretty witty.

Humorist David Sedaris talks about his new book, his new life in France, and why outing makes him grumpy

Early in his career as a best-selling author and National Public Radio commentator, David Sedaris swore he'd keep his job as a Manhattan housekeeper. "I can only write at night," he said at the time, "and cleaning apartments gives me something to do during the day." Today, with three bestsellers to his credit and a new collection, Me Talk Pretty One Day (Little, Brown, $22.95), just out, Sedaris is in such demand that he barely has time to clean his own homes in Paris, Normandy, and Manhattan. On the eve of his latest book tour, he stopped dusting long enough to speak with The Advocate about fame, Andrew Sullivan, and being gay in France.

Your publicist told me that you just passed a kidney stone. That sounds like fun.

Well, it was better than the last time I passed a kidney stone. That was about ten years ago, when I was living in New York. I didn't have any health insurance, and I didn't know what was happening to me. This time, I was living in france. I just went to the emergency room. They never asked me if I had insurance or how I planned to pay them. Five minutes after I got there, I was on a Demerol drip and watching a rerun of Charlie's Angels dubbed in French. I want everything in life to be that way.

It's comforting to read a writer who is gay but isn't writing about the concept of being gay.

I just never even think about that, especially now that we live in Normandy. When we were looking for an apartment in Paris, I never thought, Are we not going to get the apartment because we're gay? People here just don't talk about it. One of the students in my French class asked our teacher the difference between the words for "boyfriend" and "friend." The teacher said, "You wouldn't say `boyfriend,' it's nobody's business who you're sleeping with." It's such an American thing to say, "Meet the person I'm having sex with." To say that here would be unbelievably tacky.

You've written disdainfully about the notion of coming out. Did you never make an official announcement to people in your life about your sexuality?

I did. But I only told, like, one person. That's all you have to do because when you tell someone that you're gay they go tell everyone else, and pretty soon everybody knows and your work is done.

You also don't seem to think much of outing.

I'm just grumpy about it. I'm confused by this essay I read by Andrew Sullivan in The New York Times about these celebrities who don't talk about their sexuality [even though they're widely rumored to be gay]. He mentions the names of famous people in this essay, and I think it's someone's personal choice to do that, not some writer's. Anyway, a lot of gay celebrities are people we shouldn't be claiming. They're loathsome people.

You're very matter-of-fact about being gay: In each of your books, you present it without preamble. Is this because you don't feel you have to quality your sexuality, or are you just tired of the whole gay issue?

I write that I live in France with my boyfriend because it's true. I'm not trying to make a point. I don't want people to pause when they read that and think, I don't relate to him because he has a boyfriend and I'm not gay. We should have reached a time by now where that reads the same as "I live in France with my wife ..."

There's a very funny story in the new book about your grade school speech therapist, who spent a year trying to correct your sibilant s. All her students were sissies, you claim. You must take some secret pleasure in your success as a radio personality, after all her criticisms of your voice.

When I started on the radio, I thought, What if l go to speech class now? Is it too late for it to work? But people kept saying, "No, you shouldn't change your voice." I take comfort in the fact that everyone hates the sound of their own voice.

Once one is successful, one ends up with a short bio attached to one's name. You're lately referred to as an "expatriate."

Oh, no. Where did you see that? To call me that is to suggest that I was a patriot to begin with. I really hate that word. Expatriate. What does it mean?

What about your occasional identity as a "gay writer"?

Well, that happens only in gay magazines, where the idea is, "We have to qualify why we're writing about him, why we're putting him in the magazine at all."

Now that you're famous, do you receive mash notes from strangers? Do you have a stalker?

No one is following me. But I get a lot of letters, mostly from kind people or people who want to know how to get their book published. I don't want to be responsible for discouraging anyone, but I never know what to tell people. People say, "How do I get an agent?" but they don't want me to say, "Wait until someone calls and asks if they can be your agent," which is what I did.

You write that you tricked Hugh into being your boyfriend so you could live in his house in France. What really happened?

That's what happened. I tricked him into being my boyfriend so I could live in his house in France. I got him over to my house under false pretenses. Then I got invited to his house and hid notes in his fridge and freezer and his shoes telling him to be in love with me.

Who will play you in the movie of your life?

Somebody with really crummy teeth! I don't know. I guess I'd really like Matthew Broderick to play me. He has a certain quality that I like. Of course, it's not like any quality that I actually possess. But if Jane Fonda can play Lillian Hellman, Matthew Broderick can play me. It'll take me up a few notches.

Find more on David Sedaris and Me Talk Pretty One Day at www.advocate.com

Pela is a theater critic for National Public Radio's Morning Edition and the author of the forthcoming Filthy: The Life and Times of John Waters.