WE HAVE REACHED CAPACITY for the reading portion of this event. David welcomes fans who were not able to purchase a seat to join the signing line after the reading portion has concluded.
Join us Friday June 16th at 7:00 PM when DAVID SEDARIS comes to Mrs. Dalloway's Bookstore to read from, discuss, and sign copies of his #1 Bestseller Happy Go Lucky! In this book, brand new in paperback, David once again captures what is most unexpected, hilarious, and poignant about recent upheavals, both 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. The evening will kick off with a presentation by author CINDY HOUSE. ( David Sedaris photo credit Anne Fishbein)
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.
DAVID SEDARIS is the author of twelve previous books, including, most recently, A Carnival of Snackery, The Best of Me, and Calypso. He is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and BBC Radio 4. In 2019, he was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He is the recipient of the Thurber Prize for American Humor, the Jonathan Swift International Literature Prize for Satire and Humor, and the Terry Southern Prize for Humor.
CINDY HOUSE is an essayist, short story writer, artist, and a regular opener for David Sedaris on his tours across the country. She studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and earned an MFA from Lesley University in 2017.
PRE-REGISTRATION for this for this event required, and we expect to sell out.
BECAUSE SEATING is limited, please register only if you plan to attend.
WE ASK that attendees arrive between 6:30 and 7:00 PM for the event.
NO PHOTOGRAPHS or video will be allowed.
PLEASE leave your non-service companion animals at home.
OUR shared restrooms are not accessible after 6:30 PM, so please plan accordingly
