Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
by David Sedaris
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Book Summary Information
Author: David SedarisEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2004-06-01
ISBN: 0316143464
Number of pages: 272
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Book Reviews of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Book Review: Introspective "Fairy Poppins" Still Talking Pretty and Funny
Summary: 5 Stars
I thought "Me Talk Pretty One Day" was definitive Sedaris, and I am constantly amazed how he can mine his life with each succeeding book for more nuggets of comic revelation. It's funny how his books remind me of all things, "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", where Mary succinctly explained to Rhoda once in the midst of preparing for an inevitably bad date that she has spent her whole life trying to avoid humiliation. Obviously she didn't succeed, and neither does Sedaris. The difference with Sedaris though is that he honestly embraces the way life embarrasses him. For that viewpoint, I am grateful and in certain ways empowered by the 22 brief essays on display here.
For sure, Sedaris does not disappoint as he finds more material in his North Carolina childhood, for instance, the TV-less Tomkeys whom Sedaris likes to observe for anthropological reasons since "friendship would have taken away their mystery and interfered with the good feeling I got from pitying them". In fact, writing about his family is also a way of simultaneously expressing his affection and getting even with them, though he's not quite ready to admit it to himself or to his sister Lisa, who is justifiably worried that everything she says will be fodder for his next book. In the chapter "Repeat After Me", he debates with a parrot and faces the uncomfortable realities of using his family members' lives for material. Even more bittersweet is "Put a Lid On It", about a visit to his sister Tiffany, whom unrescued by her family, struggles to get by as an adult after an adolescence spent in reform school. She's the one who calls him the politically incorrect yet dead-on moniker of "Fairy Poppins" over the phone to their brother.
These remembrances no matter how funny and skewed show Sedaris is getting more introspective and achieving more emotional resonance this time around. In one of my favorite stories, "The Ship Shape", he wistfully recalls a childhood visit to a summer house that his father had promised to buy but could not. In the most honest way, he clings onto the vivid memory that they were once a happy family. In a seemingly odd non-sequitur called "Possession", he captures the typical American obsession for prime real estate when he visits Anne Frank's house in Amsterdam in the midst of his own apartment-hunting. He does not memorialize the memory of the Holocaust but rather unapologetically goes on about what a great place she and her family had during the war from a realtor's perspective. It's a risky move, but he pulls it off because he knows we all have inappropriate thoughts during life's most solemn moments.
But lest you worry that he is on a self-help bender, the key elements of all his other books are still here - the confusion of childhood and the embarrassments of adolescence, the difficulties of connecting, the sense of being a perpetual outsider, the pervasive biting humor. As his family grows to become mine, and as his adventures produce more than just laughs but an oddly tingling sense of déjà vu, I look forward to what Sedaris will remember next.
Summary of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters. He goes on vacation with his family. He gets a job selling drinks. He attends his brother's wedding. He mops his sister's floor. He gives directions to a lost traveler. He eats a hamburger. He has his blood sugar tested. It all sounds so normal, doesn't it? In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives -- a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.Whether by nature or by nurture, Ma and Pa Sedaris certainly knew something about raising funny kids. Amy Sedaris has built a cult following for her Comedy Central character Jerri Blank, and David, the more famous of the two siblings, continues to spin his personal history into comedic gold. A good chunk of the material in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim debuted in other media outlets, such as The New Yorker, but Sedaris's brilliantly written essays deserve repeat reads.
Based on the author's descriptions, nearly every member of his family is funny, although some (like sister Tiffany, perhaps) in a tragic way. In "The Change in Me," Sedaris remembers that his mother was good at imitating people when it helped drive home her point. High-voiced, lovably plain-spoken brother Paul (aka The Rooster, Silly P) has long been a favorite character for Sedaris readers, though Paul's story takes on a serious note when his wife has a difficult pregnancy. The author doesn't shy away from embarrassing moments in his own life, either, including a childhood poker game that strays into strange, psychological territory. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim provides more evidence that he is a great humorist, memoirist, and raconteur, and readers are lucky to have the opportunity to know him (and his clan) so well. His funny family feels like our own. Perhaps they are luckier still not to know him personally. --Leah Weathersby
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