Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Book Review: Not his best but good enough
Summary: 3 Stars
I enjoyed "Dress Your Family...". It delves more into his family and personal relationships than the others have and while funny - it is occasionally funny in a disturbing way. You can't help but wonder how much is true and how much is sort of maybe true but somewhat embellished. You find yourself hoping there is in fact embellishment because we're talking serious dysfunction otherwise - particularly when he discusses one of his sisters and his brother.
His writing is as usual quick and biting and witty. He is self-deprecating, but compared to a couple of his siblings, and maybe his father (as he describes them) - he is the *less messed up*, which is scary.
Although I didn't like it as much as "Me Talk Pretty One Day", I still recommend it.
Book Review: Edgy and Occasionally Disturbing
Summary: 4 Stars
I've enjoyed Dave Sedaris's work since I first heard an abridged reading of SantaLand Diaries on NPR several years ago. I loved the unabridged and somewhat edgier version even more. I have enjoyed every one of his essay collections. His delivery, written and spoken, is unique.
On the other hand, I am no Sedarista. While some of his pieces are funny or touching or thoughtful or odd, others are a bit creepy. I first read The Girl Next Door in The New Yorker and it was disturbing, not only because of the strange family he describes, but because of his own behavior. It was no less disturbing a second time around.
All but one of the essays in this collection have appeared before, in magazines or on radio. The single essay that seems to be newly published here is Chicken in the Henhouse, funny in places, but it left me uneasy in the same way that The Girl Next Door did.
These essays have Sedaris's family as their theme. Apparently the family member who is most comfortable in his own skin is his younger brother, Paul, a Southern redneck who surrounds himself with clutter and dogs. Sedaris never mentions that his sister Amy is also a writer. There are funny lines and conversations, but I wouldn't categorize this as a humor collection. His previous collections have included mainstream funny essays with more serious and unsettling pieces. This collection contains nothing like SantaLand Diaries or Me Talk Pretty One Day and Jesus Shaves, two fabulous essays about the trials of learning French, and trying to explain, with limited vocabulary, why an egg-laying bunny is the symbol of Easter in America. The pieces in Dress Your Family are a little too honest and revealing to be comfortably funny.
But I read every word. Sedaris's writing is clean and spare. He doesn't waste any words. These essays, as effortless as they read, must have required merciless editing on Sedaris's part to remove every unnecessary word, and to make every phrase just the right one.
Which is why I am still puzzling over the title. There is no essay called Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, nor is there any reference to corduroy or denim. Perhaps it has to do with the French origin of the words? Maybe the reason is so obvious that when someone tells me what it means, I'll smack my forehead and feel like a dope. But meanwhile, I'm stumped.
Book Review: Somewhat amusing
Summary: 3 Stars
This was the first title I have read from the author and after seeing all of the reviews, I somewhat expected this to be one of the those laugh out loud books. With a few exceptions, it wasn't. I was still entertained by the accounts of this very unique family and was able to relate to various pieces of the different stories. I dont regret picking up this book up but I I think I was expecting more. Book Review: Moderately amusing
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the first book I've read by the author after many recommendations from people. The book was so-so...the only time I laughed out loud was in the "Girl Next Door" when he finds out the little girl's hick grandmother is nicknamed "Rascal." That was brilliant. The reason the stories lacked a lot of humor for me is because they were so banal and commonplace. This guy does not have a unique family--everyone I know has a family just as crazy, but in different ways. My family is twice as nutty as his, though nobody drinks. I just didn't feel like this guy had any experiences worth writing about. As another reviewer pointed out, the book read like some random dude's mildly amusing, though ultimately pointless, blog. Book Review: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Summary: 4 Stars
"...Still I adopted my mother's attitude, as it allowed me to pretend that not making friends was a conscious choice." So ends the first paragraph of David Sedaris' star achievement, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.
Sedaris' writing is not linear, though while his books have no beginning, middle, or end; all of his essays revolve around a central point. Throughout Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, we see Sedaris really look at himself for the first time, realize that money is material, and find that even those who should love you most can turn on you for no appropriate reason. There is no specific setting in this book but Sedaris' life; the main characters are the people he encounters; and the obstacles that he faces are those anyone can relate to. Sedaris is able to connect with the average man because he is the average man, making this book that much more hilarious.
Being told to pick your favorite moment out of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is like being told that although you have a million dollars; you can only buy one thing, so you better make it count. There are just so many things to choose from- Sedaris and his siblings trying to get their youngest sister run over so that their mother will let them in out of the snow; a little misunderstanding between maid services; and even the birth of The Rooster. Despite all of the humor, I would have to choose a slightly more serious moment as the one that affected me most. When Sedaris left college he went back home to live with his parents. After a few months of bumming around and doing drugs, Sedaris' father called him into his office, and kicked him out. When his mother dropped him off at his new apartment, she began to cry. As Sedaris states, "I wouldn't know it until a few months later, but my father kicked me out of the house not because I was a bum, but because I was gay."
It was difficult to pull a theme from this book, and for a while I wasn't so sure that there was one. A few weeks after I finished the book, I began to think about how people always try to cover up anything ugly, like Sedaris' father kicking him out of the house; and there I had my theme. In the last essay included in this book, "Nuit of the Living Dead," Sedaris finds a mouse in his house late at night, and proceeds to drown it in a bucket. Partway through killing it he is interrupted by a man looking for directions. He is, of course, worried about what the man will think of him. However, when the man gets up to the house and looks into the bucket, he does not seem shocked or surprised. After he left with directions, Sedaris walked back out onto his porch and looked at the lifeless animal in the water. As he stared at the floating body he felt the darkness around him, and later wrote: "When the sun came up I would bury my dead and fill the empty bucket with hydrangeas, a bit of life and color, so perfect for the table. So pleasing to the eye." As usual, something ugly was being replaced with something beautiful, and once again the illusion that everything was okay was being put up for show.
This book will make anyone who reads it laugh, yet due to the hilarity of Me Talk Pretty One Day, I did not find this to be his best humorous achievement. I did however find it to be the one that affected me the most. I have always believed that a book that means something to the author is better than a book that is meant to entertain, which is why I believe that Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is a must-read.