David Rakoff, a Storyteller Who Laughed at the World and Himself

Larry Busacca/Getty ImagesDavid Rakoff in 2010.

11:46 a.m. | Updated

David Rakoff, a storyteller who could elicit peals of laughter and tears of sympathy with his personal accounts of Christmas Day mountain-climbing, studying Tibetan Buddhism with Steven Seagal, flying on the Concorde and grappling with his frailties, died on Thursday evening.

Born in Montreal and raised in Toronto, Mr. Rakoff worked in the New York book publishing industry after studying at Columbia University. He wrote for numerous publications, including The New York Times Magazine, and in the early 1990s connected with fellow humorist David Sedaris, after hearing Mr. Sedaris read an essay on the radio about the yuletide trials and tribulations of playing Crumpet the elf at Macy’s. Mr. Sedaris and Ira Glass, the future host and producer of “This American Life,” encouraged Mr. Rakoff to produce and perform more of his material, leading to a longtime association with that Public Radio International show.

In 2001, Mr. Rakoff published the essay collection “Fraud,” which included his accounts of training with Mr. Seagal, the action-movie star and holistic shaman, as well as travels to Iceland and an ascent of Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire, dressed in “large, ungainly potatolike” Timberland boots that, he said, he disliked “with a fervor I usually reserve for people.” With characteristic mordancy, Mr. Rakoff added, “Just think, the shoes I wouldn’t be caught dead in might actually turn out to be the shoes I am caught dead in.”

The book, in which Mr. Rakoff also wrote about being diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease (“so highly curable that I like to refer to it as the dilettante cancer”) in his early 20s, was widely hailed. It was followed by two additional essay collections: “Don’t Get Too Comfortable,” published in 2005, and “Half Empty,” which was released in 2010 and went on to win the Thurber Prize for American Humor.

In addition to his work in the theater and occasional roles on television, Mr. Rakoff appeared in and adapted the screenplay for “The New Tenants,” a film that won the Academy Award for best live action short in 2010.

In an essay published last year in The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Rakoff wrote about being treated for “a rather tenacious sarcoma around the area of my left collarbone.” Told by a medical technician to have “a fantastic day,” Mr. Rakoff wrote: “Fantastic days are what you wish upon those who have so few sunrises left, those whose lungs are so lesion-spangled with new cancer that they should be embracing as much life as they can. Time’s a-wasting, go out and have yourself a fantastic day!”

“Fantastic days,” he continued, “are for goners.”

Reflecting on what he called “the empathy broadcast” Mr. Rakoff wrote:

it does not soften the blow, indeed it does the opposite. It leaves you exposed, like grabbing onto the trunk of a tree for support in a storm only to find the wood soaked through and punky and coming apart in your hands. The sweetest bedtime-story delivery is no help when the words it delivers are a version of “ . . . and behind this door is a tiger. Brace yourself.”

The essay concludes: “Have a fantastic day.”

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