An amusing look at life’s ironies
Almost everyone has a dysfunctional family, but few expose their relatives’ funny, embarrassing and even disturbing quirks quite like writer and humorist David Sedaris.
Anyone who has read Sedaris’ essays in The New Yorker magazine knows about his large Greek American family and his boyfriend, Hugh, who form an awkward but loving ensemble cast.
In “Happy-Go-Lucky,” a new collection of poignant, honest and funny essays, Sedaris is bothered when he notices the crepe-like skin between one sister’s chest and neck, lamenting that his once beautiful sisters are aging. “It just seems cruel,” he says.
Writing about his teen years, Sedaris is simultaneously amusing and brutal while unflinchingly exposing the ironies of his family and life in general. In one anecdote, his father, Lou, yanks a sister naked out of the shower. In another, Lou subjects the young David to a humiliating examination when he claimed to be sick.
Elsewhere in this collection of essays, Sedaris shines a harsh light on his experiences during the pandemic, from grocery shopping early on to his return to nonstop travel for work, walking through empty airports, past shuttered businesses, closed lounges, painting a somewhat troubling picture of life in America today.
In a North Carolina airport, he encounters what initially appears to be a fig that turns out to be a turd, most likely a dog’s. “What has this world come to?” he wonders.
Sedaris also reflects on the little things from pre-pandemic life that he never appreciated before: being handed a restaurant menu, reading banal text messages over a stranger’s shoulder.
Most people probably know Selma Blair
from her memorable roles in late ’90s/early 2000s hit films such as “Cruel Intentions,” “Legally Blonde” and “Hellboy.” Perhaps others are familiar with her work as a model. Or maybe they’ve heard about her midlife multiple sclerosis diagnosis and the recent documentary, “Introducing, Selma Blair.”
What they don’t know — and couldn’t until now — is the devastating trauma the Michigan-born Selma Blair Beitner has suffered during her 49 years.
Blair details all of it in her captivating and unflinching memoir, “Mean Baby.” Her addiction to alcohol. Being sexually assaulted by a trusted high school administrator and raped during a college spring break trip to Florida. Plus, multiple suicide attempts and stints in rehab. Raw and real, “Mean Baby” is Blair’s life in words — warts and all. And well worth the time, because, believe it or not, it’s also funny. And uplifting.
Her mother, Molly Cooke, is a recurring presence in the book. The lawyer and workers’ compensation magistrate served as Blair’s role model
and confidante, despite dispensing sometimes painfully harsh truths along the way. Blair’s adoration for her mom is clear, making Cooke’s 2020 death all the more difficult for the author.
Blair also recounts her Hollywood friendships (Reese Witherspoon and Carrie Fisher), romances (Jason Schwartzman) and run-ins, memorably how she met pop star Britney Spears while both were in rehab in Malibu. Also, she bit Seth MacFarlane (hand) and Sienna Miller (arm) upon meeting them.
Now, as for the title — Blair was born into it.
“I was a mean, mean baby. I came into this world with my mouth pulled into a perpetual snarl,” she wrote. “From the very beginning, I was misunderstood.”
Blair may have been misunderstood back in 1972, but after a halfcentury of searching, she appears to have found her truth. And the love of her life — a son, Arthur, to whom she dedicates the book and credits in part for a new outlook.
“The mean baby is still there, but her edges are softer, wiser, kinder.”
And capable of producing a dazzling and intense memoir.