Review of "Calypso: A Memoir" by David Sedaris

David Sedaris

Humorist David Sedaris is almost always funny, but some of the stories in this book - which is largely about his family - are melancholy and nostalgic. In addition to recounting humorous incidents in his life Sedaris writes about his sister's suicide; his mother's alcoholism; and his father's disapproval. The following are examples of his anecdotes. Sedaris grew up in Raleigh, North Carolina with his mother Sharon, father Lou, and five siblings: Paul, Amy, Gretchen, Lisa, and Tiffany. The Sedaris Clan The siblings, clockwise from top left: Gretchen, Lisa, David, Tiffany, Paul, and Amy.  Front Row (left to right): Lisa, David, and Dad (Lou) Second Row: (left to right) Paul, Amy, Mom (Sharon), and Gretchen . Tiffany was a troubled soul and committed suicide in May, 2013, a few weeks before her 50th birthday. Tiffany was always difficult to be around, being disagreeable and prone to act out. At the time of Tiffany's death, she and David hadn't spoken in 8 years, but he knew her life was chaotic. Tiffany Sedaris When Tiffany took her life her mother had been dead for more than twenty years, having died from lung cancer in 1991. The rest of the family came together at a rented house on Emerald Isle, off the coast of North Carolina, where they had been vacationing for decades.  The relatives speculated about why Tiffany had committed suicide, but no one could explain it. Tiffany had left her family long before, and always made excuses for not coming home for holidays or summer vacations. Tiffany squandered her share of a family inheritance; became homeless; raided garbage cans for things to sell; took to bartering instead of using money; and seemed almost proud of being poor. During the family visit the idea of a permanent vacation home came up, and David and his partner Hugh spontaneously went out and bought a beach house on Emerald Isle - to serve as a holiday spot for their clans. 90-year-old Lou Sedaris wanted to name the house Tiffany but David and Hugh settled on Sea Section, which is "beachy and a pun."  Emerald Isle, North Carolina Both David and Hugh's relatives use the house for holidays, and Sedaris includes anecdotes about their visits in the book. David Sedaris and his partner Hugh Hamrick ***** Sedaris is a relatively short man, and feels comfortable enough to joke about it. He writes, "At 5' 5" I never give much thought to my height until I do. Whenever I come across a man my size at the airport say, or in a hotel lobby, I squeak the way a one-year-old does when it spots a fellow baby. It's all I can do not to toddle over and embrace the guy." Though David isn't bothered by his height he takes exception when people refer to him as bonsai-sized, diminutive, or elfin....which makes it sound like he fits in a teacup. ***** Copying a friend, Sedaris got a Fitbit and started out with the recommended goal of 10,000 steps daily, about four miles - easy to knock out in a day. When David traveled for appearances, he would take the stairs at airports instead of escalators, and avoid moving sidewalks. Over time David escalated to 12,000, 15,000, 25,000, 30,000, and finally 65,000 steps a day, over 25 miles. Far from being a waste of time, Sedaris would pick up litter around his Sussex, England home with a trash grabber and listen to audiobooks and podcasts. The neighborhood was cleared of chip bags, dead squirrels, empty KFC buckets, greasy fish and chip papers, drink containers, used condoms, and once a tiny strap on dildo....which led to much amusing speculation.  Cartoon of David Sedaris with his Fitbit and Trash Grabber ***** Twice in 2014 Sedaris went to Tokyo with his sister Amy, and since David had been there seven times already, he was able to lead Amy to all the best places - by which he means stores. David Sedaris and his sister Amy Sedaris When they went in 2016, David's boyfriend Hugh and sister Gretchen went as well. The group rented a house near one of their favorite stores, Kapital, and went shopping.  Kapital in Tokyo Sedaris writes, "The clothes [Kapital] sell are new but appear to be previously worn, perhaps by someone who was shot or stabbed and then thrown off a boat. Everything looks as if it had been pulled off the evidence rack at a murder trial." David wonders "if they put them in a drier with broken glass and rusty steak knives." Clothes sold at Kapital Sedaris and the others visited all four Kapital stores in Tokyo, and David bought a flannel shirt made of "five differently patterned flannel shirts, ripped apart and then stitched together into a kind of doleful Frankentop." He also purchased three hats, which he likes "to wear stacked up, all at the same time." Gretchen found a hat that seemed to have been "modeled after a used toilet brush," and added it to her pile. Sedaris observes that to him, Amy, and Gretchen, "there is nothing but shopping", and they "would never choose to visit a park, or a temple, or some cultural institution where they don't sell things." David describes some of his additional purchases in Tokyo stores, which include dress pants that come up to his nipples (which cost as much as a MacBook air); culottes; a denim smock (which Hugh calls a dress); drawstring jeans; and more. David Sedaris showing off clothes he purchased in Tokyo **** Omega J8006 At age 46 David's brother Paul eats much the way he did when he was 9 months old. Sedaris observes that Paul's "nickname used to be the rooster; now we call him the juiceter." He adds, "Everything goes into his Omega J8006: kale, carrots, celery, some kind of powder scraped off the knuckles of bees, and it all comes out dun colored and the texture of apple sauce."  **** Sedaris gets annoyed with store clerks who try to sell you extra things. He observes, "The practice of pushing more stuff on you is called upselling, and it's one of those things that once you notice it you can't stop noticing it." He goes on, "At the airport in Baton Rouge a few years back I ordered a coffee. 'Do you need a pastry to go with that?' the young man behind the counter asked. I wasn't too shy to order the coffee, I said. So what makes you think I'd hold back on a bear claw if I wanted one? The young man shrugged, 'We have danish too'." Irritated, David eschewed that vendor and moved over to Dunkin Donuts, where he told the counter woman, "I want coffee, just coffee, period." The woman crossed her arms and said, No cup? No sugar? No milk? Sedaris wryly notes, "This always happens when I try to make a point." ***** Even as an adult Sedaris finds it difficult to talk to his father, a reticence that may stem from their tetchy relationship when David was a child. Young David felt his dad was critical and didn't like him, and found it impossible to get on his dad's good side. Sedaris writes, "And so eventually I quit trying and founded the opposition party, which I still lead to this day. Whatever he's for I'm against....almost." Sedaris admits his own youthful behavior was less than stellar. Young David ruined a pastel family portrait by spritzing it with blood from raw beef; he lied and stole money from his father; he made his sisters cry; and he purposely clogged the toilet by flushing down empty cardboard toilet rolls. This particular naughtiness ended when David was forced to pull out the debris....a task that scarred him for life. Lou Sedaris's critiques extended into David's adulthood. Sedaris writes, "As an adult I regularly return to Raleigh and read out loud. " Sedaris goes on, "My family will attend and afterward without fail my father will say 'That was nice and everything but it wasn't sold out. I counted thirty empty seats.' Sedaris writes, "This is him all over. The place accommodates more than 2200 people but all he can see are the unoccupied chairs." ***** Some of Sedaris's acquaintances are conspiracy theorists. One long-time friend told Sedaris with great authority that "Hillary Clinton is a member of the Illuminati and that she and her husband have killed scores of people, including children, whom they also sexually molested." The friend went on to say that Queen Elizabeth had the entertainer Prince killed, and the website that divulged this information also noted that the Queen told another Illuminati member that "before the year ends, three more world famous musicians must die." Sedaris observes, "My friend gets almost feverish when he talks about these people and the way they're all connected. Queen Elizabeth leads to JayZ leads to the Centers for Disease Control leads to the fake Sandy Hook shooting and the way the government staged 9/11." David is amazed that his friend "honestly believes all this and is frustrated that I won't believe it as well."  After Trump was elected, David joined his family on Emerald Isle for Thanksgiving and had a great screaming fight with his Republican father who yelled at one point, "Donald Trump is not an asshole." Sedaris notes, "I find this funny but at the same time surprising. Regardless of whether you voted for him, I thought the President Elect's identity as a despicable human being was something we could all agree on. I mean he pretty much ran on it. "  ***** A TV show Sedaris likes is 'Intervention', where real life alcoholics and drug addicts are seen going about their business. The show makes David think of his mother Sharon, who was an alcoholic. David loved his mother, and recalls "She was a lady. By this I mean that she never wore pants, just skirts and dresses. She never left the house without makeup on and her hair styled. Sober she was cheerful and charismatic." David's mom liked to joke around, tell stories, and get people laughing. Young David and Amy Sedaris with their mother Sharon After too many drinks, though, Sharon Sedaris got belligerent. David writes " 'The little bitch,' my mother would say, her voice slurred, referring to someone she might have spoken to that afternoon or maybe five years earlier, a shop clerk, a neighbor.....'talking to ME that way, like that, like I'm nothing'." David recalls that his mom would slam around, reliving old arguments, and late in life embraced the word f**k. David and his siblings considered it not really her "but a kind of virus talking." The family was sometimes embarrassed by Sharon, but never confronted her, never asked what they could do to help her. David is immensely regretful and notes, "I'm forever thinking of all our missed opportunities. Six kids and a husband and not one of us spoke up." ***** Sedaris recalls the last time he saw his sister Tiffany. It was at the stage door at Symphony Hall in Boston where he'd just finished a show. David writes, "I was getting ready to sign books when I heard her say 'David, David, it's me Tiffany'." Tiffany Sedaris as a young woman Sedaris goes on, "We hadn't spoken in four years at that point, and I was shocked my her appearance. Tiffany always looked like my mother when she was young. Now she looked like my mother when she was old. She held up a paper bag with the Starbucks logo on it. 'I have something for you.' Sedaris told the security guard to close the stage door. David remembers, "He shut the door in my sister's face and I never saw her or spoke to her again. Not when she was evicted from her apartment, not when she was raped, not when she was hospitalized after her first suicide attempt. She was, I told myself, someone else's problem. I couldn't deal with her anymore." Following Tiffany's suicide, Sedaris was consumed with guilt, and his family consoled him. David writes, “They were just telling me what I needed to hear, something to ease my conscience and make me feel that underneath it all I’m no different from anyone else. They’ve always done that for me, my family. It’s what keeps me coming back.” ***** Sedaris is always chatting with people to get material for his appearances and books. Thus, he asked a number of people in different countries what they would say to someone who cut them off in traffic or otherwise irritated them. A Copenhagen resident told David, We're not big on cursing so we say, "Why don't you run around in my ass?" In the Netherlands, if someone drives in a crazy way, people call them "a cholera sufferer", "a cancer whore", "a cancer slut" or "a dirty typhus mongoloid." To this, David observes that in America we would say 'person with Down's syndrome', though that might be too long when passing someone on the highway. A Vienna curse is, "Why don't you find a spot on my ass that you would like to lick and lick it", which is probably quicker and less awkward to say in German. And a bad female driver might be called "a blood sausage." One of the best curses is Bulgarian, where they say, "May you build a house from your kidney stones." Sedaris notes, "Well FINALLY I thought. This is essentially wishing someone an eternity of gut-wrenching pain. Those Bulgarians don't fool around." Some of the most crass curses are Romanian, where they say, "I shit in your mother's mouth"....or other such 'mom' remarks.  ***** The book includes several stories about Sedaris's father Lou, who's still going strong at the age of 94. Elderly Lou Sedaris During a recent Thanksgiving at the beach, for instance, David and his sister Lisa were returning from a walk when they found their father in the middle of the street, a quarter mile from the house. "What are you doing here?" David asked, and Lou Sedaris said, 'Looking for someone. I was just hoping somebody might come along and invite me to his house to watch the game. The Panthers are playing this afternoon and you don't have a god damn TV.' Lisa asked, "You thought someone was just gonna say Hey. Why don't you come to my place and watch some football." 'I was gonna build up to it,' Lou said. 'You know, drop hints and so forth.' On a less amusing note, Sedaris admits to having hard feelings because his father cut him out of his will. 'You told me you wanted to be cut out', he'd said five years earlier, when I confronted him about it. "When?" I asked. 'I don't know but you did.' David writes, "There was no way on earth that this was true. In that respect my father is very much like the current President...."There were a million and a half people at my inauguration. The biggest crowd ever. A million and a half."  It's hard to even call it lying. It's a form of insistence. 'This is the way I need it to be god damn it.' ***** There are plenty more humorous anecdotes in the book, about turtles, lipomas, plane trips, marriage proposals, doctors, friends, ghosts, fortune tellers, Donald Trump, James Comey, and more. Sedaris's best stories, though, are about his family. Let's hope this loving clan generates many more tales. Rating: 4 stars