Dress your family in corduroy and denim
Title: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
Author: David Sedaris
Reviewer: Magda Knight
If you haven’t heard David Sedaris yet, don’t waste another second. He’s an original. Gut-laugh funny? Oh good Lord yes!
I picked up ‘Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim’ mostly because Crazygirl – a glam singer interviewed for Mookychick – told me to, and I liked the title. Crazygirl said she cackled in a super-unladylike fashion when reading this book, and it’s really and truly not because she’s whack, because she’s not… Everyone forced at plastic knife-point to read my battered copy has said exactly the same.
In ‘Dress Your Family’, a collection of episodes from the life of David Sedaris and his lovably eccentric family, he pokes fun at his brother for crafting mutton-chop sideburns from slabs of bacon for a Christmas photo. He talks of his red-faced shame over his father’s loud aggressiveness, his mother’s benign hippy neglect, his entire family’s disgust at constantly being portrayed in his books, and his coming to terms with being a gay outsider who’s too funny for his own good.
His wicked humour and eye for what lies in the hearts of men turn the most ordinary family nonsense into a crazy, dumb extravaganza that makes you want to phone up your stupid family straight away and tell them you love them. Then not bother, because you’ve still got another chapter to go.
‘Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim’ is filled with anecdotes you feel must be stretching the truth a little… at least until you sit back and reflect on how insane your own family is, and how someone should really write a book about them. So David Sedaris tells tall tales about his brother’s wedding being conducted by a psychic, a visit to his junk-collecting sister, Tiffany; and his father’s uber-embarrassing attempt to get the school’s most popular boy (who hit David in the mouth with a rock, which he was actually pleased about) to pay for the dental work.
Buy this book. You won’t be disappointed.
