Maybe J.D. Salinger was right.

Get in, put out a handful of great books (including one classic in ....Catcher in the Rye'') and then get out, going on a lengthy, mysterious sabbatical, thus leaving your legacy, near-perfect resume and mystique intact.

Ralph Ellison did roughly the same thing. He wrote one masterpiece novel, ....Invisible Man,'' and only published a few essays and short stories sporadically after that until his death in 1994.

Harper Lee outdid both of them. She wrote ....To Kill A Mockingbird,'' won the Pulitzer Prize, then dropped her typewriter on the stage with one hand, said ....I'm out'' and walked off, never to return to the land of lit.

All of them remain giants in the world of words, regardless, or perhaps because of, the stinginess of their bibliographies.

Unfortunately, the alternative is the norm.

Typically, an author releases a few good, sometimes great, sometimes classic, books, but then inevitably, his or her work starts to go downhill. Usually first dropping a little, then slumping to mediocrity before finally leaping full force into habitual disappointment to fans.

Such has been the case with a lot of my favorite writers.

Douglas Coupland started off promisingly, with ....Generation X'' and ....Shampoo Planet,'' before releasing his two greatest books (in my humble opinion) in ....Microserfs'' and ....Life After God.'' His next work, ....Polaroids From The Dead'' was very good but not on the same level, then he slid precipitously starting with the decent but disappointing ....Girlfriend in a Coma.'' I stopped buying his books after 2003's stale ....Hey Nostradamus!'' and I'm debating whether I'll even bother reading his latest work, ....The Gum Thief.''

After a strong nonfiction debut with ....Fever Pitch,'' Nick Hornby wrote two masterpiece modern novels with ....High Fidelity'' and ....About A Boy,'' both of which still stand strong as smart, knowing, enjoyable reads.

Unfortunately, Hornby followed those twin titans up with a zoom down the tubes with the clunky ....How To Be Good'' and has yet to fully recover.

Bret Easton Ellis. Jay McInerney. Mark Leyner. Chuck Pahlaniuk. The list goes on an on of authors I've revered at some point who have, to varying degrees, failed to live up to their early efforts.

And now, another one might have joined the ranks.

David Sedaris has been one of the funniest authors in American literature since his debut with ....Barrel Fever'' in 1994. Over the ensuing decade, he was that rare writer who became better as he grew more popular with each successive work. In 2004, he released what I thought was his best work to date, ....Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim,'' a collection of short stories that didn't just continue Sedaris' string of hilarious memoirs, but showcased a depth and skill that promised a huge breakthrough on the horizon.

A few weeks back, Sedaris came out with his latest book, ....When You Are Engulfed In Flames,'' and, well, it's...okay. Generally entertaining, but overall disappointing given my expectations. At first I thought that maybe it was just me, that maybe I had the bar too high and that the book was actually better than my first reaction. So, I read it again.

Nope. It's really just...okay.

It reads more like a collection of blogs than anything else, with a hit-and-miss quality that borders on the meandering. If any other author had published it, I would like it, and I would probably look out for his next book, but I wouldn't count the author among my favorites. I expected more from an author of Sedaris' stature.

I'm hoping this is just a blip. As I, and any writer, can tell you, anyone can hit a dry patch. I'm the first to admit there are columns and stories I've done that, in retrospect, make me cringe. Also, creators of any stripe need a variety of muses and a diversity of life experiences to make their work grow. Sedaris, like so many others before him, could be a prisoner of his own success. ....Flames,'' like the disappointing sophomore albums of so many rock bands, contains way too many stories about the trappings of success and life on the road and few real profound insights about it.

Maybe what Sedaris needs is to take a sabbatical. Take some time off, get away from the usual, dare himself to break free of anything he's written about in the past (e.g. his family, his vices, etc.) and experience the world in a new way before he can return to write about it with the same enthusiasm and excitement.

I just hope he isn't gone as long as J.D. Salinger.



copyright 2008 Sean Leary / for more writing, please do make your way over to my splendiferous website, www.seanleary.com, and feel quite free to purchase any of my magnificent books on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, borders.com or at any fine area retail establishment