David Sedaris with a monkey on his shoulder. He brings his off-kilter sense of humor to PPAC tomorrow night for a reading of new material.

Monologuist and author David Sedaris of National Public Radio fame will perform new material tomorrow night at 8 at Providence Performing Arts Center.

Not everyone can point to the precise time his life turned around.

But David Sedaris can. It was Dec. 23, 1992, when National Public Radio’s Morning Edition broadcast Sedaris reading The SantaLand Diaries, his hilarious account of working as an elf named Crumpet at Macy’s SantaLand in New York.

Before then, Sedaris was getting by on a series of odd jobs: apartment cleaner, mover, elf. But once SantaLand was unleashed upon the world, everything changed — it was as though his sardonic humor had just been waiting to find its audience.

“The phone started ringing and it never stopped,” Sedaris told interviewers.

He has since written four books, become a regular contributor to National Public Radio, written plays with his sister, the actress and writer Amy Sedaris, and received two Grammy nominations for spoken-word recordings. One reviewer called him “Garrison Keillor’s evil twin.”

Sedaris, who now divides his time between Paris, Normandy and London, is coming to the Providence Performing Arts Center tomorrow at 8 p.m. (Meanwhile, more Sedaris is on the way: The Sandra Feinstein-Gamm Theatre in Pawtucket is presenting two monologues based on Sedaris’ writings, The SantaLand Diaries and Season’s Greetings, starting Nov. 24.)

Generally, in his theater appearances Sedaris will read new work for about an hour, then answer questions, and finally sign copies of his books. Occasionally he will spice up the routine with a wicked twist, such as the time in California that he let cigarette smokers get their books signed first.

“Oh, I got in so much trouble,” Sedaris, a dedicated smoker, said over the phone from his apartment in Paris. “But smokers have been bullied so much, I thought they could use a little treat. Besides, they don’t live as long as everyone else, so their time is more valuable.”

Sedaris likes to bunch up his readings into a literary blitzkrieg, hitting 30 cities in 30 days, although occasionally the scheduling will give him a day off.

“I’m reading out loud for an hour. In the great scheme of things, that’s not very hard,” he said. “And answering questions about yourself? That’s just called fantasy come true.”

Sedaris said he’s turned off by the aggressive energy of stand-up comedy, adding that he thinks of his appearances as readings, not performances. But a listen to David Sedaris Live at Carnegie Hall, recorded in 2002, reveals a performer with a finely honed sense of comic timing who knows perfectly well how to get a laugh.

If you go see Sedaris, don’t expect to hear old favorites. Sedaris reads new material, road testing it before publication and rewriting stories in his hotel room between readings.

“I read with a pencil in my hand, and I make notes while I’m reading, although I don’t want it to be too obvious,” Sedaris said. “Sometimes I’ll think, ‘Man, that was a really boring paragraph. It didn’t add anything to the story.’ But you don’t really know until you hear it. . . .

“Sometimes I’ll read a story four or five times and prove to myself I can get a laugh, and then I’ll see what it’s like to live without it, to dig a little deeper and add an observation that’s not funny but makes it a better story.”

But he doesn’t want to give up on the laughter entirely.

“I go to other people’s readings, and all you hear is coughing,” he said. “I guess my feeling is that if people aren’t making some kind of noise, then they’re not really listening.”