As always, family is a central motif for David Sedaris in his recent essay collection, Calypso. The death by suicide of his sister, Tiffany, is a constant reference point, and is recounted directly in what I found the strongest story, “Now We Are Five”. His siblings have been a significant part of his previous work, but they’re everywhere here. Tiffany’s death, though he’s open and honest about their long estrangement in the face of her addictions, seems to have given an added sense of urgency to the maintenance of his family connections. And it seems to have softened him just a little. His wit is as sharp as ever, but there’s a poignancy there too. My second favorite story, “Untamed”, recounts a connection he felt with a neighborhood fox. It’s sweet, and slightly sentimental, and I feel like a younger Sedaris would have found a way to cut it with sourness or just excluded it entirely.

David Sedaris is, at this point, a man who has been well-known and wealthy for decades. To keep your life relatable to the point that people will continue to buy and read and identify with your work seems like it would be quite a challenge. He doesn’t always succeed here: in particular, “A Perfect Fit”, in which he recounts going shopping with his sisters for exorbitantly expensive couture in Japan designed to make them look like they’ve fished their duds from the trash, really didn’t work for me. It would be one thing if they were shopping for clothes that were glamorous, or even just luxurious but functional, but to glorify in the ugliness of these ridiculously overpriced clothes in an era where the income gaps between rich and poor yawn ever-wider just left a bad taste in my mouth. That one story aside, though, he mostly succeeds at connecting with the reader because he’s so good at finding the humor in the petty moments of everyday life. “Stepping Out”, in which he recounts roaming the French countryside picking up litter after becoming obsessed with getting as many steps on his Fitbit as possible, left my stomach sore with laughter.

I’ve often wondered what it must be like to mine your own life for material the way Sedaris does. How it must effect the people around you, with the knowledge in the back of their minds that you might turn this moment into a story. The reality is, as anyone who’s been bored senseless by someone trying to tell you what they clearly think is a hilarious anecdote at a party, that it’s hard to get these kinds of stories to land. Sedaris has had issues with being accurate enough to be fairly labeled “non-fiction”, and there’s a bit of a nod to that in “Why Aren’t You Laughing?”, in which David relates the way he would watch his mother massage her stories, sanding off the dull bits and sprucing up the punchline to create something worth telling, never mind that it might not be strictly “the truth”. Maybe people just figure that by the time their actual interactions with him come out in writing, they’ll be tweaked enough that it won’t really matter. I enjoyed reading this book, Sedaris’s wit and skill as a storyteller are as sharp as ever. I would recommend picking it up! ( )

I have long appreciated David Sedaris’s humor. His latest book, Calypso, uses humor to tackle some darker subjects, like his late mother’s alcoholism, his sister Tiffany’s suicide, his father’s aging, and the 2016 presidential election. He forgives no one, including himself, for their less than stellar moments, and comes off in this non-fiction book that reads like journal entries like a loveable curmudgeon. Despite that the subject matter in these vignettes is family and death, the book never felt dark and heavy, because Mr. Sedaris’s humor was liberally sprinkled throughout. ( )

I've been a fan of David Sedaris ever since reading Me Talk Pretty One Day. Curiously, he's scarcely known in New Zealand, as far as I can tell. This is a darker comedy than previous collections, dealing with his wealth and fame and the suicide of his sister, but it's still cutting and hilarious. ( )

When it comes to David Sedaris, audiobooks are always better than print ones. Especially since he is the one narrating. It feels good to get a Sedaris book from time to time and listen to his take on life. I can even hear his comments as I go about my own day, for example when the cashier at the grocery store asks about my plans for the weekend. Sedaris is insightful and entertaining.
But Mr. Sedaris: I really did not need to hear what you did with your lipoma. That was a little too much information. ( )

Not all humor comes from pain, but this author's sure does. Laughed several times while listening. Poignant and sad despite that.