David Benjamin Rakoff (November 27, 1964 – August 9, 2012) was a Canadian-American essayist and humorist, born in Montreal and raised in Toronto, who spent his professional career in New York City. Rakoff was an essayist, journalist, and actor, and a regular contributor to WBEZ's This American Life. He described himself as a "New York writer" who also happened to be a "Canadian writer", a "mega Jewish writer", a "gay writer", and an "East Asian Studies major who has forgotten most of his Japanese" writer."David Rakoff – This morning: Sunday edition", Cbc.ca. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
Early life and education David Rakoff was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, the youngest of three children. His brother, the comedian Simon Rakoff, is four years older than David. Their sister, Ruth Rakoff, author of the cancer memoir When My World Was Very Small, is the middle child.Johnson, Sharilyn, "Preview: Simon and David Rakoff" , Uptown Magazine, June 6, 2006. Retrieved January 20, 2010.Hamson, Sarah. "David Rakoff: Canada's Big Apple Peeler" . Globe and Mail, October 22, 2005. Retrieved January 20, 2010. Rakoff and his siblings were close as children.Rakoff, David, "My sister of perpetual mercy" in A member of the family: gay men write about their families (1992) (edited by John Preston) Rakoff's mother, Gina Shochat-Rakoff, is a doctor who has practised psychotherapy and his father, Vivian Rakoff, is a psychiatrist. Rakoff wrote that almost every generation of his family fled from one place to another.Rakoff, David, "About men: extraordinary alien", The New York Times, October 9, 1994. Retrieved January 20, 2010. Rakoff's grandparents, who were Jewish, fled Latvia and Lithuania at the turn of the 20th century and settled in South Africa. The Rakoff family left South Africa in 1961, for political reasons, and moved to Montreal for seven years.Zimmer, Elizabeth, "The hungry eye", The Australian, August 16, 2008. Retrieved January 20, 2010. In 1967, when he was three, Rakoff's family relocated to Toronto.Rakoff, David, "About men: extraordinary alien", The New York Times, October 9, 1994. Retrieved January 20, 2010. See also Walters, Juliet, "Just for Laughs: just for lunch: writer David Rakoff on Schwartz's, ethics, and comedy" , Montreal Mirror, 2007. Retrieved January 20, 2010. As an adult, he identified as Jewish.NPR Interview with Terry Gross, May 14, 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
Rakoff attended high school at the Forest Hill Collegiate Institute, and graduated in 1982. That year, he moved to New York City to attend Columbia University, where he majored in East Asian Studies and studied dance. Rakoff spent his third year of college at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London and graduated in 1986. He worked in Japan as a translator with a fine arts publisher. His work was interrupted after four months when, at age 22, he contracted Hodgkin's disease, a form of lymphatic cancer he referred to as "a touch of cancer". He returned to Toronto for 18 months of treatment, including chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery. Rakoff later served on the board of directors of North Carolina's John C. Campbell Folk School.
Writing
Early career Before becoming a full-time writer, Rakoff worked for 13 years in the publishing industry, including as a publishing assistant and a publicist.This American Life, Episode 208: "Office Politics; Act Two: Sheet cakes in the conference room, whiskey after dark", March 15, 2002. Retrieved January 20, 2010. He worked at a literary agency for 3 years and then as an editor and communications manager for 9 years at HarperCollins,."Publishers Stormin' Norman for rights to his memoirs", Miami Herald May 11, 1991. Retrieved March 10, 2010. For a period starting when he was 25, Rakoff wrote freelance while working in the publishing industry. Eventually he was able to earn a living from his writing, becoming a full-time writer in 1998. While Rakoff was working in publishing, he wrote Q and A interviews entitled "The Way We Live Now", which appeared in The New York Times Magazine from 1999 to 2002.See for example, "The Way We Live Now: 3-17-02: Questions for Barry Manilow; Hip to Be Square", The New York Times, March 17, 2002. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
Role of David Sedaris and Ira Glass in Rakoff's career Rakoff said that he owed David Sedaris and Sedaris' producer, Ira Glass, his entire career.Interview with Megan Sukys and Dave Beck on kuow.org . Retrieved January 20, 2010.Terzian, Peter , Newsday May 13, 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2010. Rakoff wrote to Sedaris in 1992, after hearing him read on the radio his essay, "Santaland Diaries", about being a Christmas elf, which was to make him famous. That day, Rakoff wrote to Sedaris immediately to ask if he could publish Sedaris' works (which he later confessed he had no intention of doing, since he was desperate to leave publishing).Dowling, Brendan, "The limits of my paltry imagination", Public Librarians May/June 2008. Retrieved January 20, 2010. They became friends, with Rakoff doing work in the theatre with Sedaris, first directing a play written by Sedaris and his sister Amy Sedaris, and later acting in their plays. Through Sedaris, Rakoff met Ira Glass, who was then a junior reporter on the NPR radio program Morning Edition. When Glass began This American Life, Rakoff became involved with the new show at its inception.Salazar-Rubio, Sofia, "Author David Rakoff on the Charmed Life of a Writer", The Daily Californian, February 2, 2008. Retrieved January 20, 2010. Sedaris encouraged Rakoff to go on public radio, where Sedaris himself had achieved fame: at his urging Rakoff took work to This American Life, starting with "Christmas Freud", an account of Rakoff's job impersonating Sigmund Freud in the window of Barneys department store during the holidays.
Journalism David Rakoff was a freelance writer whose work appeared regularly in publications including Condé Nast Traveler, GQ, Outside Magazine, and The New York Times Magazine. His essays and articles were also featured in Business 2.0, Details, Harper's Bazaar, Nerve, New York Magazine, Salon, Seed, Slate, Spin, The New York Observer, Vogue, Wired, and numerous other outlets. Throughout his career, he wrote on a wide and eclectic range of topics.
Published books of essays Rakoff published three bestselling collections of essays, which include his own illustrations. Both Fraud (Doubleday 2001) and Don't Get Too Comfortable (Doubleday 2005) were awarded a Lambda literary award (which recognises excellence among LGBT writers who use their work to explore LGBT lives), both times in the "Humor" category.Lambda Awards home page . Half-Empty (2010) won the 2011 Thurber Prize for American Humor.
Fraud Fraud includes essays that are largely autobiographical and humorous. Rakoff stated, in relation to the theme of the book, "The central drama of my life is about being a fraud, alas." He went on to say "That's a complete lie, really; the central drama of my life is about being lonely, and staying thin, but fraudulence gets a fair amount of play."Rakoff, David, "In New England, Everyone Calls You Dave" in Fraud: essays (2001), p 17. He has said that he thought of other titles for Fraud, like "Smart mouth" and "The jig is up".Richards, Linda, "David Rakoff", January Magazine, November 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2010. Rakoff described the first-person essays that comprise the collection as more inwardly focused than his later work. The work contains material from public radio's This American Life and from Outside and Salon, which was significantly lengthened and re-written, as well as a few new pieces.Seven of the stories ("In New England Everyone Calls You Dave", "Arise, Ye Wretched of the Earth", "Before & After Science", "Hidden People", "Christmas Freud", "We Call it Australia" and "I Used to Bank Here, but That Was Long, Long Ago") first appeared on Public Radio International's This American Life, "Including One Called Hell" and "The Best Medicine" first appeared in GQ, "Extraordinary Alien" appeared in The New York Times Magazine, "Back to the Garden" in Outside and "Tokyo Story" in Conde Nast Traveler.
The book received praise from many critics, garnering near-unanimous acclaim. In a review Publishers Weekly wrote that "a talented new humorist springs onto the scene: Rakoff has a rapier wit, slashing in all directions with slice-of-life insights and cutting remarks, sometimes nicking himself with self-deprecation in his dexterous duel with the American experience."Extract from Publishers Weekly review. Kevin Cowherd said that in the book, Rakoff "makes a strong bid for the title of Most Neurotic Man on the Planet, and the results are absolutely hilarious – when they're not achingly revealing and tinged with sadness."Cowherd, Kevin, "Rakoff's essays could win him the title of Most Neurotic Man on the Planet, The Baltimore Sun, May 26, 2001. Max Magee called the collection a "meta-article in which he talks about the particulars and relative merits of his assignment as he embarks on that assignment"Magee, Max, "Fraud: review", themillions.com, May 10, 2005. Retrieved January 20, 2010. and that "the reader feels invited in for a behind the scenes look at what it is like to be a disaffected, overly-qualified, under-ambitious journalist as he takes on his fluffy assignments." David Bahr calls Fraud "witty, insightful and typically bittersweet."Bahr, David, "The great indoors man", The Advocate, July 3, 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
Other reviews of the bookSpineless review . and audio-bookReview of audio book of Fraud. were mixed. The reviewer in The New York Times mentioned (by way of criticism) that Sophocles and Freud had pursued the same idea that forms the book's focus, that is, that we are defined by our fears.Cho, Christina, "Books in Brief: Fraud", The New York Times, June 24, 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2010. Greil Marcus said Rakoff's stories are not as funny as those he read on the radio.Marcus, Greil, "Review: Fraud" , Salon, August 20, 2001. Retrieved January 20, 2010.
Don't Get Too Comfortable