Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim ~ David Sedaris

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Genre: Adult Non-fiction/humor
Publisher: Back Bay Books
272pages
ISBB: 9780316010795
Source: Gift

The very first time I heard the name David Sedaris, was from one of the girls on my hall, freshman year. She said the book she was reading was incredibly funny and offered to lend it to me but I turned it down as I really don’t do pop-memoir, nonfiction types. That stigma stuck with me, along with the name, until this past week. In a super gift basket from my families at school, packed with magazines, snacks and other fun entertainment, was Sedaris’ Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

One might think that I would be disappointed, given my heretofore denouncement of said writer for absolutely no good reason. I was, however, actually really excited. Call it breaking the seal or guilty pleasure but the fact that someone else bought it for me alleviated my obligation to admitting I actually wanted to buy it.

Of course, many of you know where this is going as I am the last living person to read his stuff. I absolutely hate myself for holding out for so long. He’s funny, smart and incredibly honest. As his book winds through his life from less than movie perfect scenes out of his childhood to completely Hollywood level of scandal in his adult life, hilarity peeks around every corner.

Sedaris leaves no one and nothing out of mockery, least of all himself. He makes fun of his inability to leave his family alone in his writing, analyzes his sexual orientation, as well as that of others and just generally pokes fun at the world in a sardonic, wry, excellent manner.

I still, for the life of me, can not understand why it’s taken me ten whole years, almost to the hour, to get my hands on this and my head around it. Don’t do as I have done. If you haven’t read Sedaris, do so now or regret it later.