"Calypso"

Humorist David Sedaris is now in his sixties, and that is cause for taking stock. His new collection of personal essays, "Calypso" ($28 in hardcover from Little, Brown and Company; also for Amazon Kindle) does just that. He wonders if he will someday be like that old guy on the plane who pooped in his pants. He tries coming to terms with an alcoholic mother (gone for three decades), a father in his nineties (a man of few words and very conservative views) and the suicide of his sister Tiffany in 2013. 

When Sedaris remembers some of the things his mother said about him to others in the family, he writes that "it was hurtful the first few times her criticism got back to me. ... Then I realized that it didn't mean anything. Opinions constantly shifted and evolved, were fluid the same way thoughts were. ... It was all just storytelling." 

That's key to understanding the Sedaris clan, from his longtime boyfriend Hugh, to David's siblings, Gretchen, Lisa, Amy, and Paul. The essays evoke a quirky family constantly on the move (especially David in his Fitbit obsession), with opinions flying and bouncing into each other, morphing sometimes into silliness and sometimes into sentiment: storytelling binds them together. 

Wry, rude and gross (like when, after surgery to remove a non-cancerous fatty tumor, he feeds it to a turtle), Sedaris is also funny. He names the family beach house he buys on the coast of North Carolina the "Sea Section." 

He describes in detail doing public readings while suffering intense gastrointestinal distress. He inveighs against everything being "awesome" these days, and learns the giant snapping turtle with a growth on its head actually has a name. "I felt betrayed, the way you do when you discover that your cat has a secret secondary life and is being fed by neighbors who call him something stupid like Calypso."

Chico Performances is presenting an evening with David Sedaris on Monday, January 14 at 7:30 p.m. at Chico State University's Laxson Auditorium. Tickets from the University Box Office (csuchico.edu/boxoffice or call 530-898-6333) are $60 Premium, $50 Adult, $48 Senior, $40 Youth and $15 Chico State Students.

Now isn't that awesome?