Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

DressYour Family In Corduroy and Denim is the title of the book I read. It is written be David Sedaris. David Sedaris is the author of Barrel Fever, Holidays on Ice, as well as collections of personal essays, Naked, Me Talk Pretty One Day, When You Are Engulfed in Flames, and his most recent book, Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls, each became a bestseller immediately. His books often appear in The New Yorker.  He is frequently featured on This American Life, which is a radio show distributed by Public Radio International. He has been nominated for three Grammy awards for Best Spoken Word and Best Comedy Album. I haven’t read many of his books based on the fact that they are very mature books. The theme of this collection of stories is family. In this book he conveys what it is like to live in a large, poor family.

This book is filled with events that Sedaris experienced in his life. We have a peek into Sedaris’s crazy, twisted, and hilarious life. We get to see what it was like growing up with his dysfunctional, quirky, yet lovable family. He had a very dramatic life growing up gay; his growing up is infused with misunderstanding. He often gets put into awkward situations existing between people of different nationalities. My favorite story is he is at his old rich aunts house that his mother calls Aunt Monie.  She is constantly having the maid’s spy on him because she feels as if he is sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. “’Where’s that boy,’ she’d ask my mother whenever I left the room. ‘Call him back here. I don’t like people snooping through my things’’’ (Sedaris 66). She had become very ill and was soon going to die. “She was still elegantly dressed, but withered, her balding head drooping from her shoulders like an old onion” (Sedaris 65). David always tried to please her so he could be included in her will. “The guilt I’d stored was suddenly gone, replaced by the fear that she’d forgotten to mention us in her will” (Sedaris 65). As it turns out he was put in the will, he was given a bearskin rug. This story is my absolute favorite because I am considered a ‘snooper’ as well. I understand his need to go through other people’s things and houses you can tell a lot about people by browsing through their house.

I would defiantly recommend this book to others. The way he narrates his life is amazing. Along with me weeping of laughter, I also get a very real sense of what the real world is like. Looking into his upbringing I can see that anyone can get hooked into drugs and alcohol. Even with a support system like friends or family this book displays how easy it is to get into drug habits and slip into poverty. I was listening to NPR and they did an interview with David, he realized he was an alcoholic when he stayed at a friend’s house. His friend had just gotten out of rehab, David couldn’t hold off drinking for one night and he got his friend hooked on alcohol again. For me it is truly an inspiration to see someone who can bounce back from having nothing to being a bestselling author. I think this book has the perfect balance between hilariousness and seriousness. I would defiantly like to read his other books and see what other stories he has to offer.

            

Book Review by Paige C.