Barrel Fever is a 1994 collection of short stories and essays by American humorist David Sedaris. The first section consists of pieces clearly labeled as short fiction and the second half contains autobiographical essays, a distinction that is not made in his subsequent books.

The most famous of the essays is "SantaLand Diaries", the essay that made Sedaris famous when he read it on National Public Radio in 1992. The essay tells of his experiences working as an elf named Crumpet at Macy's. The other is "Diary of a Smoker", which was made into a 13-minute film shown at Sundance Film Festival by Matthew Modine.

Contents

Stories

  1. Parade
  2. Music for Lovers
  3. The Last You'll Hear from Me
  4. My Manuscript
  5. Firestone
  6. We Get Along
  7. Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2
  8. Don's Story
  9. Season's Greetings to Our Friends and Family!!!
  10. Jamboree
  11. After Malison
  12. Barrel Fever

Essays

  1. Diary of a Smoker
  2. Giantess
  3. The Curly Kind
  4. SantaLand Diaries

Reception

A 1994 review in Newsweek magazine said that despite Sedaris's fondness for "high-concept premises" and tendency to "eschew deep thoughts", "there's something delicious about the way he lampoons his characters, the way he lets everybody burn on their own private bonfire of vanity. This is a writer who's cleaned our toilets and will never look at us the same way."