Happy-Go-Lucky

Happy-Go-Lucky is David Sedaris's first essay collection since Calypso. The book opens with Sedaris engaged in everyday activities: learning to shoot guns with his sister, visiting flea markets in Serbia, buying gummy worms for ants, and making jokes with his nonagenarian father. This changes when the pandemic arrives, forcing him into lockdown and preventing the touring and reading he loves most. During quarantine, Sedaris copes by taking long walks through an empty city, vacuuming his apartment repeatedly, and reflecting on how others survive the shutdown. As the world adapts, he undergoes personal changes: he straightens his teeth and gains confidence. After his father's death, he contemplates what it means to no longer be someone's son in his seventh decade. Returning to the road, Sedaris observes a transformed America marked by exhaustion, closed businesses, Help Wanted signs, and graffiti expressing conflicting messages. Throughout the collection, he captures the unexpected, humorous, and poignant aspects of these recent upheavals—both personal and public—using precise language to explore the misanthropy and desire for connection that motivate people.