When McCurdy was 3, her mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. Born in Los Angeles, the author, along with three older brothers, grew up in a home controlled by her mother. 1992) reveals the raw details of what she describes as years of emotional abuse at the hands of her demanding, emotionally unstable stage mom, Debra. In her debut memoir, titled after her 2020 one-woman show, singer and actor McCurdy (b. The former iCarly star reflects on her difficult childhood. Even in death, though, it proves hard to escape or laugh off.Ī sweet-and-sour set of pieces on loss, absurdity, and places they intersect. For years-chronicled in many books-Sedaris labored to elude his father’s criticism. His father’s death unlocks a crushing piece about dad’s inappropriate, sexualizing treatment of his children. He recalls fending off the flirtations of a 12-year-old boy in France, frustrated by the language barrier and other factors that kept him from supporting a young gay man. (He refers to one such person as a “snacktivist.”) Such impolitic material, though, puts serious essays in sharper, more powerful relief. Of Covid-19, he writes that “more than eight hundred thousand people have died to date, and I didn’t get to choose a one of them.” The author’s support of Black Lives Matter is tempered by his interest in the earnest conscientiousness of organizers ensuring everyone is fed and hydrated. (“After thirty years, sleeping is the new having sex.”) Even more serious stuff rolls off him. His relationship with his partner, Hugh, remains contentious, but it’s mellowing. On tour, he collects sheaves of off-color jokes and tales of sexual self-gratification gone wrong. He’s bemused by his sister Amy’s landing a new apartment to escape her territorial pet rabbit. On a trip to a gun range, he’s puzzled by boxer shorts with a holster feature, which he wishes were called “gunderpants.” He plays along with nursing-home staffers who, hearing a funnyman named David is on the premises, think he’s Dave Chappelle.

There’s bad news in this book, too-most notably, the death of his problematic and seemingly indestructible father at 96-but Sedaris generally carries himself more lightly. In his previous collection of original essays, Calypso (2018), the author was unusually downbeat, fixated on aging and the deaths of his mother and sister. Sedaris remains stubbornly irreverent even in the face of pandemic lockdowns and social upheaval.

Happy go lucky sedaris