Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim
David Sedaris is a humorous writer and speaker who got his start on the radio. He really gained recognition with his reciting of his writing on the public radio show This American Life. He subsequently has come out with a number of books and also writes articles for The New Yorker.
Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is Sedaris's penultimate book (his latest being Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules). I listened to an unabridged audio version of it via Audible.com, which has various plans allowing you to purchase full, unabridged versions of a huge-selection of books (many best-sellers) for as little as $6 each, and download them for immediate listening either on your computer or onto a large selection of compatible players (including iPods). Sedaris's books, in my opinion, are best listened to rather than read. He has a unique, high-pitched voice with a slight hint of an accent from a childhood spent in North Carolina. As with his brand of humor, I'm sure his voice is something of an acquired taste, as most "unusual" things are. But in addition to the voice itself, the comic timing, intonation, impersonations, etc., all are helped greatly by this author who is used to performing for audiences be they radio or live theater audiences. Of course, you can still buy the book in print if that's more your cup of tea.
Most of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is about Sedaris's odd family. Stories about them are accounted both from his childhood and adulthood. Sedaris is gay, and often makes fun of his clichéd feminine proclivities growing up. Even so, this oddness seems to pale in comparison to the personalities of some of his (heterosexual) brothers and sisters. Possibly it's because we are all used to these clichés by now from TV and movies, but even so, the Sedaris clan all seem to be exceedingly odd. One can scratch ones head and wonder a bit about this, but then most families have their oddities, and sometimes that accounts for most of the family! Of course Sedaris makes even the most bizarre and repugnant characteristics cutely funny ones.
A few of the stories Sedaris relates are about his current life with his partner in France, and while I loved his stories in "Me Talk Pretty Some Day" about his trying to learn the French language, and just trying to make sense of French culture, in this book, I preferred the family stories to these. The main exception to this was his relating how he uncovered the Dutch version of Santa Clause and how bizarre he seemed compared to the U.S.
version. This particular story, as well as one or two others, was taken from recordings in front of a live audience, as opposed to the rest of the book, which is your normal, studio-produced audio book.
In the end, if you love Sidaris, you'll probably love this book, and if you hate him, you'll hate this book. If you're unfamiliar with him, here is a selection of audio featuring him on Nation Public Radio.