Naked

Coins hold a fascination for David in his childhood as an implied extension of his desire for fabulous wealth. The first line in Naked is “I’m thinking of asking the servants to wax my change before placing it in the Chinese tank I keep on my dresser” (6), which is part of young David’s aristocratic fantasy life.  

Imagery and plot points pertaining to coins appears throughout the chapters centered on Sedaris’s early childhood. In “Get Your Ya-Yas Out!” he describes his father’s childhood as one of extreme poverty: “As a baby my father had been confined to a grim corner of the newsstand, where he crawled on a carpet of newspapers, teething on nickels. He never had a bed, much less his own room […]” (26). Louis’s deprived childhood starkly contrasts with David’s middle-class comfort. This is symbolically exemplified in “True Detective,” when one of the Sedaris children steals Louis’s collection of “one hundred and twelve” (56) silver dollars for no apparent reason: “I had seen and counted these coins many times. We all had, but who would go so far as to steal them?” (56). Young Louis chewed on low-value coins with few creature comforts; as an adult, his standard of living is secure enough that he is able to collect high-value coins for fun.