David Sedaris is one of my favorite authors and this book was just the thing I needed after the more serious books I’ve read recently.
If you know Sedaris’s work then you kind of know what to expect. It’s memoir in short story format. This collection focuses mostly around the beach house he and his partner Hugh purchase on the Carolina coast in the same town his family used to take summer vacations. This gives a lose through line to the book, which mostly talks about his family and mortality. He spends time talking about his sister that committed suicide, his mom who died of cancer at a relatively young age, and seeing his dad get older and start to need more help. It’s also about buying the house so his whole family can have a place where they can all be together again. But he owns it so he gets to veto bad decor.
This isn’t to mean that this is a sad or maudlin book, well, it is a little maudlin because Sedaris’s writing is always a little bit on that side of the spectrum. It’s very funny and wry and I flew through it. The Sedaris family is so lovable and quirky they make for very engaging characters. It’s especially fun when he talks about Amy, since she is also in the public eye with her own projects and image.
I actually waiting a week or so to write this review thinking I would come up with more to say about it, because i was a little surprised i didn’t have much even though I really liked it. I really don’t, though. It’s not because of anything negative, it’s just that my thoughts are easy summed up with: I really enjoyed it. I laughed a lot, cried a little, and gave a contented little sigh when I finished it.