Book Review: Calypso By David Sedaris

David Sedaris entertains in this book with stories about his family, his friends, but mostly himself.

The opening story is perhaps the funniest.

Having organised a family reunion Sedaris absents himself at times throughout the day, pretending to have work to do but really doing nothing of consequence. The drawback is that when he walks back into a room he has missed some entertaining part of the conversation. The sleep walking habit of one of Sedaris’ sisters is a highlight. Not only raiding the fridge and having no memory of this the next morning, but also revealing that she has unwittingly eaten the pet turtles’ dried flies, and the leaves from a house plant.

Sedaris buys a holiday house where his parents always took the family for their beach holidays. Now the family have a place to spend time together regularly.

These are very funny stories, some will shock, some will just entertain, and some are sad and dark, but the warmth of Sedaris’ voice is always there.

And in most occasions he is most revealing of himself. This is perhaps the best work of this popular humourist.