Happy-Go-Lucky
Price: $19.99 - $12.99
(as of May 28, 2025 02:38:26 UTC – Details)
David Sedaris, the “champion storyteller,” (Los Angeles Times) returns with his first new collection of personal essays since the bestselling Calypso
Back when restaurant menus were still printed on paper, and wearing a mask—or not—was a decision made mostly on Halloween, David Sedaris spent his time doing normal things. As Happy-Go-Lucky opens, he is learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting muddy flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms to feed to ants, and telling his nonagenarian father wheelchair jokes.
But then the pandemic hits, and like so many others, he’s stuck in lockdown, unable to tour and read for audiences, the part of his work he loves most. To cope, he walks for miles through a nearly deserted city, smelling only his own breath. He vacuums his apartment twice a day, fails to hoard anything, and contemplates how sex workers and acupuncturists might be getting by during quarantine.
As the world gradually settles into a new reality, Sedaris too finds himself changed. His offer to fix a stranger’s teeth rebuffed, he straightens his own, and ventures into the world with new confidence. Newly orphaned, he considers what it means, in his seventh decade, no longer to be someone’s son. And back on the road, he discovers a battle-scarred America: people weary, storefronts empty or festooned with Help Wanted signs, walls painted with graffiti reflecting the contradictory messages of our time: Eat the Rich. Trump 2024. Black Lives Matter.
In Happy-Go-Lucky, David Sedaris once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about these recent upheavals, personal and public, and expresses in precise language both the misanthropy and desire for connection that drive us all. If we must live in interesting times, there is no one better to chronicle them than the incomparable David Sedaris.
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ASIN : B09HQLFMVV
Publisher : Little, Brown and Company
Accessibility : Learn more
Publication date : May 31, 2022
Language : English
File size : 823 KB
Screen Reader : Supported
Enhanced typesetting : Enabled
X-Ray : Enabled
Word Wise : Enabled
Print length : 273 pages
ISBN-13 : 978-0316392440
Page Flip : Enabled
Customers say
Customers find the book wonderfully funny and well-written, with one review noting it’s perfect for post-pandemic humor. The book manages to plumb deep emotions while being honest and thought-provoking, with one customer highlighting its insightful exploration of human nature. They appreciate the storytelling, with one review specifically mentioning its focus on family dynamics, and the writing quality receives positive feedback. Customers find the content darker than expected.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews