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. You know who’s living a ‘good long life’? Dick Cheney. “As if it worked that way,” Sedaris writes, “and extra years were tacked on for good behavior. When someone says Lou must have been “a wonderful man to have been rewarded with such a long life,” his son fumes. When some mourners call his father “a character,” he provides a wry definition: “A character is what you call a massively difficult person once he has reached the age of eighty-five.” One, “A Better Place,” is a furiously uproarious dissection of the hoary cliches people offer to survivors. Several of this book’s essays deal with what happens when (spoiler alert!) Lou finally does die, at age 98.
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