David Sedaris's offbeat personal essays and narration have long been a favorite. He's aware of his own quirks, and he shares them in such a delightful, self-effacing way. Most of his essay collections have been pure entertainment with a hint of sharp observation that always makes them feel smart. Calypso follows this path, but it's darker and more poignant.

The familiar Sedaris family is aging, and with age comes all the attendant self-reflection and life changes. This plays out differently for each family member and affects their relationships with one another. In this collection, most of the family feel closer to one another than they ever have before, with the exception of Tiffany, whose suicide shadows most of the essays here.

Sedaris' writings on Tiffany's suicide, as well as aging, politics, addiction, and regret, make this essay collection darker and more reflective than many of his previous. He is still dryly funny, and the ability to prompt regular laughter while writing about such serious topics is a particular talent.

Sedaris has been writing about his family for so long that they may start to seem like characters, frozen in time on the pages, rather than real people for whom the years are passing. As Sedaris faces aging--both his own and that of his family--so too do his long-time fans, who know them only through the bits and pieces he chooses to share. I anticipate an ongoing change in tone in the coming years, but I will continue to read and listen for as long as Sedaris is writing.

This new collection of David Sedaris' essays and stories will be familiar to any fan, and I enjoyed revisiting them. His fiction stories are always too absurdist for my taste--you can safely skip those if you feel the same.

For those who love the stories of his life and family, though, this is is a nice journey through the years. The essays, including one new one, get more poignant toward the end, as Sedaris reflects on their lives and the family members who have passed away. I do always enjoy Sedaris more on audio--his delivery makes the stories even funnier--and if you can, I recommend listening to this instead of reading.

David Sedaris’ latest book feels like a return to a more familiar humor, especially after Calypso, which was a darker and more poignant reflection on his family (and dealt with the suicide of his sister, Tiffany). As Sedaris ages, his family faces more such losses, and in Happy-Go-Lucky, it’s his father who passes away.

Longtime readers will know of Sedaris’ complicated relationship with his father, and he’s always dealt with it through humor. His father’s death is no exception. The essay collection doesn’t solely focus on his father–he covers the pandemic, absurd outings with family, and more. I laughed aloud more than once, but I also detected a new hint of meanness here that I never saw in his work before. Like everyone, Sedaris has been through a lot in recent years, which could account for those moments. For me, they didn’t overtake his superior storytelling and narration; Sedaris’s audiobooks were the first that I truly enjoyed, and I’m always glad for the chance to listen again.