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David Sedaris has long been a NightsAndWeekends.com favorite (see Tony’s review of Naked and Karin’s
review of Me Talk
Pretty One Day), so I figured it was high time I checked him out for myself to
see what all the fuss was about.
His latest collection, Dress Your
Family in Corduroy and Denim, features unusually witty, always sharp observations
about his childhood, his family, his neighbors, and his friendships. The essays cover
everything from pre-teen run-ins with the popular crowd at school to his brief career as
a hippie. Smart and satirical, Sedaris’s comments are often funny-cuz-it’s-true or
funny-cuz-his-family-is-even-crazier-than-mine—and, at the same time, they make you stop
and think.
Dress Your Family is one of those books that you’ll
find yourself reaching for whenever you’ve got a spare minute. It may cause you to burn
dinner because you “just want to finish this part…” And it may compel you to read
sections to friends, family, and even total strangers. I, for example, read my favorite
essay, called “Six to Eight Black Men,” in its entirety to my parents. I found it
painfully hilarious, since it’s about both gun laws in Michigan (where I grew up—and
where my parents still live) and the unusual Christmas traditions of the Dutch (and I
happen to be purebred Dutch). My parents may have been slightly offended by Sedaris’s
joking about some of the things they hold dear, but at least they were amused by the way
I kept giggling through my reading. I just couldn’t help myself—and you won’t be able
to, either. Pick up a copy of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, and you’ll
get just as caught up in David Sedaris’s unusual everyday life as I was.
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