Another collection of essays from the last few years.
This is "the pandemic book" and actually covers the last few years in a way that's anchored to time in a way that a lot of his stories don't quite seem to, so that's nice. Mostly the big things going on are the pandemic forcing him to not work (i.e. go do shows) and finally, the death of his father. There's also some stuff about his SO, Hugh, and how the rest of the family finds him difficult-ish.
Essays that stood out to me:
I remember him reading the going-shooting essay at a performance years ago, and now it's in the book and tied in to school shootings.
There's also a speech to graduates, in which he says that when parents tell him their kid wans to write but the kid needs something to fall back on, he's all "Then why does she need to fall back?" he said. Awwww. He also notes that "I figured my post-college life would be pretty much like the one I'd been leading for the past decade: work some little job I didn't have to put much into, then come home and do my own stuff. It was the life that most of my friends had, and half my family." Hah, me too, except I actually do live that life and don't know how to get out of it.
Hanging with the family: his sister Gretchen wants to tell him all the things people hate about him. "I know. It's a consequence of putting stuff out there--you're going to get reactions. That doesn't mean I have to regard them all."
Hugh has apparently lived in a lot of houses that got destroyed--including the infamous Sea Section beach house from previous books. I did kind of enjoy the essay about how the family finds Hugh weird and sometimes David agrees, but then again, they've been happy together a long time.
David finds out from ladies that they take their bras off IMMEDIATELY. Then it occurs to him why so many times he went over to a woman's house and she suddenly had an unmatching sweatshirt on and her arms crossed. "I thought that was sign language for "Couldn't you have told me you were coming?" Now I see tha it actually meant "If you think I'm putting my bra back on for this bullshit, you are so sorely mistaken." LOL.
David collects jokes at shows. He mentions one about guys marrying women from different countries and how long it takes them to be broken in. "The third man marries an American girl. He orders her to keep the house clean, the dishes washed, and the lawn mowed, and to put hot meals on the table every evening. The first day he doesn't see anything. The second day he doesn't see anything. But by the third say, the swelling has gone down...." (Suffice it to say he recovers enough to make his own sandwich and load the dishwasher.)
I am a person who squicks at dental stuff, but I was actually touched at the essay in which David uses the pandemic to get his teeth Invisaligned and then feels a whole lot better about himself.
The second half is where things get more serious, between coronavirus and his father's decline and death. The author reveals that his father was...kind of sexually creepy at times to David and the girls...and the kids didn't really know what to make of it. Tiffany started to claim after awhile that the father had done something sexual to her, but between her mental illness and her total vagueness, they had no idea whether or not to believe her. I think it takes some guts to admit that stuff, especially since Lou Sedaris has been portrayed as a crotchety old man character who's fun to read about but you wouldn't want to deal with IRL. He's openly pretty...well, let's just say some things he will not miss about his dad. There's a whole lotta "ewwwww" in the Lady Marmalade essay in particular (I warn you ahead of time). "It wasn't that he violated our bodies. He just wanted us to know that they were as much his as ours."
Quotes:
- As a kid, he had a crush on a neighbor lady who left him a nice note saying "If I were ever to fall in love again, it would be with you." "All these years later I can still admire what a perfect response that was: This is never going to happen, but thanks so much for noticing me."
- "Our commencement speaker was a conceptual artist named Vito Acconci. He'd done a lot but was best known for constructing a wooden ramp in a New York gallery. Then he hid beneath it and masturbated for several weeks without stopping. "Well, you could do that!" my mother said when I explained to her who he was. "I mean, isn't that the goal? Doing what you love and getting paid for it!"
- "It sounds petty, but if at any time during the meal a dinner guest used the word surreal to describe our current situation or the phrase hunkered down, I would make a mental note to disinvite them from any future get-togethers."
- Hugh once points out to David that he's "wishing I would get COVID so you could write about it." David: "He nails it every time!"
- "He accuses me of being money hungry, and I wish it were that simple. Honestly, it's the attention I'm after."
- David mentions in his younger years going over to a famous actor's house and mistaking the guy's wife for his maid. "My face still burns to think of this, but if nothing else, it taught me a lesson. From that day on, whenever I go to someone's home and see a person of a different race working either inside or outside the home, I say, "Is that your husband?" or "How come you make your wife do all the cleaning?" .... "Eventually I'll be right, and my host will say, "May I just thank you for being the one person in my life who isn't a horrible racist?"
- "I say, "What if I don' want him with me?" What if sixty-four years of constant criticism and belittlement were enough, and I'm actually fine with my father and me going our separate ways, him in a cooler in the funeral home and me here at the kids' table?"
- "One thing you never want is for your youngest sister to call for advice on anal sex, especially when she's getting paid for it. I don't know why that last bit makes it worse, but it does somehow."
- "That's a great incentive! Slim down to one fifty and you finally get to have sex with a ninety-five-year-old man who is also your father!"
- "By the second half of his ninety-seventh year, the man was a pussycat, a delight. Unfortunately there were all those years that preceded it."
- "A character is what you call a massively difficult person once he has reached the end of eighty-five."
- "As long as my father had power, he used it to hurt me. In my youth I just took it. Then I started to write about it, to actually profit from it. The money was a comfort, but better yet was the roar of live audiences as they laughed at how petty and arrogant he was."
- "...thinking, as I always do when someone is rude to me, At least I can write about it."
Four stars.
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