RaveThe RumpusHe makes his readers happy ... But Sedaris also goes dark. He’s still funny, but if Calypso is reminiscent of anything, it’s grieving and then laughing in spite of ourselves ... Part of the magic of David Sedaris’s work stems from the simple truth that you really can’t laugh heartily until you’re hurting deeply. Calypso is funny precisely because so much of its subject matter is so dark. Watching our parents age and remain racist, trying to understand why a sibling killed herself, coming to terms with the state of America today and with one’s own mortality—these topics don’t often make for cheerful reading. But what happens between those big terrible moments does make for laugh-out-loud writing.
