David Sedaris’s dark, funny family holiday
If you’re ever lucky enough to be invited by David Sedaris as a house guest, it is advised to keep any ghost sightings or dream talk to yourself. The beloved essayist makes it clear in his new book, “Calypso,” that if he hears any discussion of chain rattlers, he’ll stick fingers in his ears. And whatever you do, avoid bringing up your jet lag.
Sedaris’ rigorous touring schedule means much of his life is spent negotiating time zones, but he doesn’t “acknowledge jet lag or give it any credit.” Unless perhaps you’ve travelled from Down Under, but even then, a mention is likely to be met with expletives. “It’s like three weeks ago last Thursday in Australia, and you get a headache doing the math, but you learn to keep it to yourself,” he says on the phone from a brief stop in Ottawa.
When Sedaris and his longtime partner, Hugh Hamrick, entertain at their primary residence — the 16th-century storybook Swan Cottage in West Sussex, England — there are dozens of nearby castles and antique shops to keep guests amused. But when it comes to their new U.S. beach house in Emerald Isle, N.C., it’s every person for themselves.
Their home is called Sea Section, marked by a sign that Hamrick painted. The couple recently purchased an adjacent property to ensure no one could build a McMansion, or what the locals call a “Sand Castle.” Sedaris was terrified that new owners would install a pool and he’d have to endure rounds of “Marco! Polo!” (The water game may be annoying, but to hear Sedaris yell out its name is a delight.) They haven’t decided what to call the house yet. It’s a debate between Canker Shores or the Amniotic Shack, which pairs nicely with the gynecological-themed Sea Section, says Sedaris, chuckling at his own pun.
“Calypso,” which reveals Sedaris’s more introspective side, hinges on a family vacation at Sea Section. On the surface, life is idyllic. Communal dinners, rounds of the board game Sorry! and the kind of lazy beach talk that Sedaris adores. Emerald Isle is surrounded by wildlife, but it’s the fierce snapping turtles — in particular, a hideous one with a deformity on its head — that captured Sedaris’s imagination. After he had an egg-sized fatty lymphoma excised from his own side, he matter-of-factly describes in the book a plan to feed the tumour to the turtle as a snack. Although his plan is slightly derailed, Sedaris is still enamoured by the reptiles’ voracious appetites, recommending YouTube videos that should be avoided by those with queasy stomachs.
The trip marked the first time that Sedaris, his three living siblings and their father vacationed together since their beloved mother — a charismatic scene-stealer whose dinnertime drinks slowly turned into riotous encounters — died from lung cancer in 1991. The purchase of Sea Section also followed his sister Tiffany’s suicide in 2013. Despite Sedaris’s disdain for ghost stories, he recalls how both appear to him in his sleep. Not as spirits, but more like check-in visits.
The essay “Now We Are Five” uses the framework of their family vacation in which to talk about his sister’s troubled life and their eight-year estrangement. After the piece was first published in The New Yorker, Sedaris heard from others who had lost members of their family to suicide, and anticipates “Calypso” will inspire similar conversations.
A week after the book’s release date on May 29, news broke about the suicides of fashion designer Kate Spade and TV chef Anthony Bourdain. Sedaris scorns the popular belief that depression can be cured by “pulling up your bootstraps” and deciding to be cheerful.
“It’s amazing how primitive people’s thinking is around that,” he says. “People have said to me, ‘Maybe if you have talked to Tiffany she wouldn’t have done this.’ Or, ‘Maybe if you had bought her a house she wouldn’t have done this.’ That wouldn’t have changed a thing. If someone is mentally ill, and they’re not going to take their medication, there’s nothing you can say or do to change anything. I don’t have any guilt. I have sorrow.”
Although “Calypso” is marketed as Sedaris at his darkest, and a sense of loss lingers over his dry humour, he doesn’t write for therapy.
Sue Carter is the editor of Quill and Quire.