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Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules

david sedaris richard yates dorothy parker joyce carol oates lorrie moore

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A must-have for the fans of the #1 bestselling author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris, a collection of his favorite short fiction from Flannery O'Connor to Tobias Wolff.

A bestseller in its own right and a must-have for fans of the #1 bestselling author David Sedaris, a collection of his favorite short fiction.

David Sedaris is an exceptional reader. Alone in his apartment, he reads stories aloud to the point he has them memorized. Sometimes he fantasizes that he wrote them. Sometimes, when they’re his very favorite stories, he’ll fantasize about reading them in front of an audience and taking credit for them. The audience in these fantasies always loves him and gives him the respect he deserves.

David Sedaris didn’t write the stories in Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules . But he did read them. And he liked them enough to hand pick them for this collection of short fiction. Featuring such notable writers as Lorrie Moore, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Jean Thompson, and Tobias Wolff, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules includes some of the most influential and talented short story writers, contemporary and classic.

Perfect for fans who suffer from Sedaris fever, Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules will tide them over and provide relief.
2 hrs 56 mins

256 pages, Paperback

First published March 29,2005

This edition

Format
256 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 2005 by Simon \u0026 Schuster
ISBN
9780743276122
ASIN
0743276124
Language
English

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About the author

Profile Image for david sedaris

david sedaris

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David Raymond Sedaris is an American humorist, comedian, author, and radio contributor. He was publicly recognized in 1992 when National Public Radio broadcast his essay "Santaland Diaries". He published his first collection of essays and short stories, Barrel Fever, in 1994. His next book, Naked (1997), became his first of a series of New York Times Bestsellers, and his 2000 collection Me Talk Pretty One Day won the Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Much of Sedaris's humor is autobiographical and self-deprecating and often concerns his family life, his middle-class upbringing in the suburbs of Raleigh, North Carolina, his Greek heritage, homosexuality, jobs, education, drug use, and obsessive behaviors, as well as his life in France, London, New York, and the South Downs in England. He is the brother and writing collaborator of actress Amy Sedaris.
In 2019, Sedaris was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

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Community Reviews

Rating(4 / 5.0, 100 votes)
5 stars
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100 reviews All reviews
Profile Image for Kimberly .
RoundEarther
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I just can't connect to these stories.

Review to come.

Audiobook Comments
Read by the author - love it when this happens!!


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Profile Image for Kimberly .
Syureria
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is a short story collection selected by David Sedaris and introduced by him also. There are five stories. Each interested or intrigued me and appeared quite different.

The first is: Where the Door is Always Open and the Welcome Mat is Out by Patricia Highsmith and ready by Cherry Jones. This story seemed to be about the relationship between sisters. One sister, presumably the younger one as she seems a bit tentative about her sibling's impending visit and possible judgment and becomes very aware of the shortcomings of her home environment.

She is overcome with remorse when she discovers that through her neglect her "geranium was nothing but a crooked dry stalk in its pot now at the extreme left of the windowsill where the sun lingered longest." And she goes on to ask herself, "Why was she always rushing so? She forgot all about doing the nice things, all the little things that gave her real pleasure."

The second story is: Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff and read by Toby Wherry and appears to be about the initial event and then the aftermath of how a man receives a bullet in the brain.

"The bullet is already in the brain, it won't be outrun forever or charmed to a halt. In the end it will do its work and leave the troubled skull behind dragging its comets tail of memory and hope and talent and love into the marble hall of commerce."

The third story is: Gryphon by Charles Baxter and read by David Sedaris and is about a rather unusual substitute teacher who introduces substitute facts to a class of students. I learned a new word: fossicking, which means burrowing.

The fourth story is: In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried by Amy Hemple and read by Sarah-Louise Parker. The themes are grief, death and sign language.

"What seems dangerous often is not, black snakes for example or clear air turbulence. While things that just lie there like this beach are overloaded with jeopardy."

The fifth story is: Cosmopolitan by Akhil Sharma and is read by him also. The themes appear to be longing, love and loneliness.

"The station wagon was so old that the odometer had gone all the way around like me he thought and like Helen too. This is who we are he thought, dusty, corroded, and dented from our voyages with our unflagging hearts rattling on the inside."
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Munozmagic
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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They put David Sedaris's name all over this thing. It wasn't until after I had checked it out that I realized it was not just Sedaris and it was not his usual non-fiction storytelling. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is kind of like that feeling when you pick up a glass expecting it to be full and it is actually empty; a bit disorienting at first, but I eventually realized what I was dealing with and settled in.

The stories were okay. Basically just low motivation, day to day kind of stuff. A bit artsy at points. One of them was a little hard to follow. I can sum it up not by saying that they were great short stories, or that they were bad short stories, they were just short stories - nothing more, nothing less.

Do I recommend it? If you are doing a book challenge and you need to fill a short story quota, this is perfect (and not too long overall if you are not a big short story fan). If you are here reading this review because you are a Sedaris fan, definitely know that this is not typical Sedaris - his name prominently displayed on the cover is pure marketing strategy.
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stationry
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A challenging collection of short stories selected by David Sedaris. It may defy expectations, if one expects light humour or satire. There are some classics in here, such as "The Garden Party" (Katherine Mansfield) as well as new writers I had not previously encountered. The Alice Munro story, "Half A Grapefruit" I had recently read in the original collection, but somehow it read differently in this volume.

One or two of these pieces I basically skimmed/skipped — but let's not get into that.

Any good strong collection will hit you different ways, from different angles, and strike you in a manner you did not expect. What I learned here is that David Sedaris as an editor leans surprisingly dark — in a good way.
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ludenberghia
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I'm not a regular reader of fiction, but when I find an author I enjoy, I tend to read the entire collection of his/her work. I love David Sedaris's humor and writing, so purchased this along with several of his other books. When I learned that this was "just" a collection of his favorite short stories instead of his own words, I was disappointed. That feeling of disappointment continued through about half of the stories in Hercules, some of which I had to force myself to finish, and one of which I just couldn't. There are some strong favorites here, though, by authors I will learn more about.

"Interpreter of Maladies" was wonderful.

"Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" appealed to me.

"People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk" was exceptionally moving.

"Irish Girl" connected with me for reasons I don't understand.

"The Girl with the Blackened Eye" was horrifying and riveting.

"Bullet in the Brain" was a near-Sedaris ending to the collection that I morbidly enjoyed quite a bit.

But the book is an uneven as you'd expect such a collection of random stories and authors to be, and I can't say that I truly enjoyed picking it up every day.
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Gaming_Hippy
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to see David Sedaris speak at UCLA. In my haste to make sure that I had read all of Sedaris' books, I bought " Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules" on my Kindle. It turns out, that this a collection of Sedaris' favorite short stories and he edited the compilation.

I am not the slightest bit disappointed that this wasn't a collection of Sedaris stories, because the selections he picked are fantastic. In fact, this is probably the best collection of short stories that I have ever encountered. Not a bad one in the bunch. Most of them are really depressing and downright hard to read. In particular, "In The Cemetery Where Al Jolsen in Buried" by Amy Hempel and "People Like That are the Only People Here" by Lorrie Moore. Both stories deal with different aspects of cancer and both are honest and heartbreaking.

I think the only story that I had previously read, was Jhumpa Lahiri's "Interpreter of Maladies." It's such a well crafted story, that I really enjoyed a second read of it. Really, this is an outstanding short story collection and I cannot praise it enough. Read it!!!
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Tedbaxter
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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I made the assumption that David Sedaris wrote these stories. While reading this story, I kept thinking something is wrong. This doesn't feel like David. It turns out that David Sedaris is the editior of all these other short stories. They are stories that he leaves.

I didn't laugh at these. They are more drama stories. They weren't bad stories, but they were not very memorable. They are simply stories. I much prefer David's stories. I'm a little disappointed in this one. Oh well.

The stories in the collection include and written by:

Introduction by David Sedaris
Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired by Richard Yates
Gryphon by Charles Baxter
Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
Half A Grapefruit by Alice Munro
Applause, Applause by Jean Thompson
I Know What I'm Doing About All the Attention I've Been Getting by Frank Gannon
Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out by Patricia Highsmith
The Best of Betty by Jincy Willett
Song of the Shirt, 1941 by Dorothy Parker
The Girl with the Blackened Eye by Joyce Carol Oates
People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk by Lorrie Moore
Revelation by Flannery O'Connor
In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried by Amy Hempel
Cosmopolitan by Akhil Sharma
Irish Girl by Tim Johnston
Bullet in the Brain by Tobias Wolff
Epilogue by Sarah Vowell
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deafvader
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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A really fabulous collection of stories from masters of the craft; Hempel, Baxter and Wolff's are my favorite. The audio version is extremely well done - Sedaris reading "Gryphon" was the best of the bunch. Highly recommended.
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