The book’s first essay, “Active Shooter,” is certainly more timely than Sedaris might have hoped. Seeing Hugh’s sorrow, though, is “When you realize you’d give anything to make that other person stop hurting, if only so he can tear your head off again.” Sedaris, raised in hurricane country, isn’t much surprised. But it turns poignant when the Sea Section, the vacation home on Emerald Isle, North Carolina, they all share, is destroyed by Hurricane Florence. The first part of “Hurricane Season” is a funny account of his relationship with Hugh and the bickering between Hugh and the Sedaris family. He writes about other kinds of loss as well. Lou was a character, Sedaris realizes, but that’s what created the tight bond among his children - having to deal with him. They have to tackle the condition of their childhood home, where Lou has been hoarding for several decades - his clothes, some so old they’re rotting, “filled seven large closets, one of them a walk-in, and hung off the shower-curtain rods in all three bathrooms.” Some of the essays reveal less than wonderful details about Lou, like his sometimes cruel or creepy behavior toward his kids.
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