Saturday Review: “Have No Fear: David Sedaris is Still Here” a review by Jennifer McGaha of David Sedaris’ collection Happy-Go-Lucky in NCLR Online Winter 2025
Of Sedaris’ twelfth book, McGaha writes, “In essays spanning from New York’s Upper East Side to Normandy to Emerald Isle and Raleigh, NC, Sedaris recounts natural, familial, and national crises alongside everyday moments with his characteristic sardonic wit.” This collection of stories covers both the Covid pandemic and the Black Lives Matter movement and also the personal aging and death of family members.
Grief, for people, for lives once lived, for what should have been, becomes a touchstone in the book. McGaha says, “The moment is, like the other best moments in this book, both funny and sad in a strange and edgy way, which is to say, in true Sedaris style, and the final chapter’s title, “Lucky-Go-Happy,” underscores the sense of wonderment and gratitude that permeate this candid and, once again, supremely funny book.”
Read the entire review in the NCLR Online Winter 2025 issue! Order the book from Bookshop.org.
