Calypso

David Sedaris makes a comeback with his darkly humorous and very intimate novel.You may assume that Calypso will be similar to David Sedaris's joyfully misanthropic tales if you've ever laughed your way through them. You'd be in error. Sedaris imagines lengthy, leisurely holidays spent with the people he loves most, playing board games and tanning in the sun, when he purchases a beach home on the Carolina coast. And everything at the vacation house he named the Sea Section is just as perfect as he had envisioned, with the exception of one little, annoying thing: you can never really take a holiday from yourself.Sedaris directs his acute observational skills towards middle age and death with Calypso. Don't get me wrong, they are hilarious tales that will make you laugh till you snort—the kind of laughter that only comes from family. Sedaris's observational skills are more acute than ever, and he has an unmatched capacity to make readers laugh out loud. However, a large portion of the humour in this scene comes from that dizzying realisation that your life's narrative is mostly composed of the past rather than the future, when your own body betrays you.This is necessary reading for folks who abhor small conversation and enjoy a good tumour joke, and it's beach reading for those who hate beaches. At the same time, Calypso is Sedaris's warmest and darkest book to date—possibly his greatest.