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Summary and Reviews of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

by David Sedaris
  • Critics' Consensus (10):
  • Readers' Rating (6):
  • First Published:
  • Jun 1, 2004, 272 pages
  • Paperback:
  • May 2005, 272 pages
  • Rate this book

About This Book

Book Summary

Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface in another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.

The new, eagerly awaited collection of personal essays from the author of the #1 bestseller Me Talk Pretty One Day.

David Sedaris plays in the snow with his sisters.
He goes on vacation with his family.
He gets a job selling drinks.
He attends his brother's wedding.
He mops his sister's floor.
He gives directions to a lost traveler.
He eats a hamburger.
He has his blood sugar tested.

It all sounds so normal, doesn't it?

In his newest collection of essays, David Sedaris lifts the corner of ordinary life, revealing the absurdity teeming below its surface. His world is alive with obscure desires and hidden motives - a world where forgiveness is automatic and an argument can be the highest form of love. Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is another unforgettable collection from one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today.

Us and Them

WHEN MY FAMILY FIRST MOVED to North Carolina, we lived in a rented house three blocks from the school where I would begin the third grade. My mother made friends with one of the neighbors, but one seemed enough for her. Within a year we would move again and, as she explained, there wasn’t much point in getting too close to people we would have to say good-bye to. Our next house was less than a mile away, and the short journey would hardly merit tears or even good-byes, for that matter. It was more of a "see you later" situation, but still I adopted my mother’s attitude, as it allowed me to pretend that not making friends was a conscious choice. I could if I wanted to. It just wasn’t the right time.

Back in New York State, we had lived in the country, with no sidewalks or streetlights; you could leave the house and still be alone. But here, when you looked out the window, you saw other houses, and people inside those houses. I hoped that in walking ...

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Reviews

Media Reviews

Bookpage
As in his previous collections.... Sedaris' tales crackle with the quirkiness that has become his cachet, declares Bookpage, ....readers will find themselves in stitches over [his] delirious accounts.

Boston Book Review
David Sedaris's brilliance resides in a capacity to surprise, associate, and dissociate, and the result is something like watching lightning strike in slow motion. . . . One of the most shameless, acid, vaulting wits on planet earth.

Denver Rocky Mountain News
If wit were measured in people, David Sedaris would be China His talent is that huge.

Time Out New York
No one walks the tightrope between hilarity and poignancy quite like Sedaris

Wall Street Journal
Sedaris' book is a Sunnier alternative to the best of this season's weighty biographies and novels.

O Magazine
[David Sedaris] has come up with a sophisticated, wildly vibrant valentine of a collection that ultimately pays tribute to the convoluted connections between people...

The New Yorker
Sedaris has a satirical brazenness that holds up next to Twain and Nathanael West.

Kirkus Reviews
Sedaris's sense of life's absurdity is on full, fine display, as is his emotional body armor. Fortunately, he has plenty of both.

Booklist - Donna Seaman
Sedaris' piquant essays are as meticulously honed and precisely timed as the best stand-up comic routines, which is, of course, what they are.

Publishers Weekly
In his latest collection, Sedaris has found his heart....what emerges is the deepest kind of humor, the human comedy.

Reader Reviews

Linn

He puts the fun in dysfunction!
A brilliantly funny book that proves you can have a very unfunny childhood and still laugh about it ( after the fact!). His dry wit and turn of a phrase left me smiling. I felt like I knew him and his family. He puts the fun in dysfunction and came ...   Read More
Absolutely Satisfied

A Must-Read
After reading this book, it has flown to the top of my top favorites list. Hilarious, touching, and brutally honest, I found this to be a completely captivating compilation of well written stories.
Anonymous

At my age, 14, this kind of humor is all I expect out of a book. My mom was listening to it in the car on the way to camp, and I didn't get what was so funny, but then three years later, I'm here, listening to it and I hardly have enough breath left ...   Read More
MG

This is laugh-out-loud funny - a terrific read!

Write your own review!

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