PositiveSan Francisco ChronicleFor those already acquainted, the laughs are smaller and fewer in When You Are Engulfed in Flames - particularly when compared with one of Sedaris\' past books, the riotous and moving Naked - so, too, are the quiet, humane revelations that for so long served as emotional ballast to Sedaris\' comic flights ... As each piece proceeds through some sniggeringly gruesome element of Sedaris\' North Carolina childhood, or a trifling hiccup in his relationship with his partner, Hugh (to whom his devotion is rather moving), or to the vagaries of living among crusty, French peasants, Sedaris grows increasingly apoplectic or aggrieved or whatever emotion happens to motivate him at the time. In the final paragraph, though, he usually forgoes the laughs and aims, not always successfully, for some grand, humane insight ... When taking on the mores of his set - that is the educated, contrary and profoundly nervous - Sedaris is strongest. The only real complaint with this enjoyable read is the seemingly tacked-on, cheaply wrought sentimentality of some of these essays.
