Book review: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris

The first book I read in January/this year was Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris, which was his usual type of awkward and sometimes funny personal essays. The only really funny story in the collection was the one where he talks about the Swedish? version of Santa Claus and how weird it is (to Americans). There were other stories that had funny parts in them, but the secondhand embarrassment or shock I felt reading the stories outweighed any entertainment I got. For example, there was one story where as a child, David stuffed as much Halloween candy in his face as he could in order to not have to share it with the neighbor kids. That is kind of funny to picture, but it's sad because it was selfish. There was also a story where he talked about his experience working cleaning houses as a young man, and a client thought he was from a male maid escort service and sexually harassed him. Again, not funny to me.

Overall, I felt the same "...ok..." indifference that I felt with the last book of his that I read, Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls. I think the reason I'm no longer a big fan of his writing is mostly due to the vastly diminished amount of indulgence I feel towards white cisgender male authors, as well as the cavalier and unexplored racial views a Southern man of his generation has. David also seems to share a lot of embarrassing and personal stories about his family even though they specifically tell him not to, which I didn't like. It's one thing to exorcise your personal demons through highly personal essays, but it's another to air your family's dirty laundry. He even writes one essay where his sister shared a sad story with him, burst into tears, and then told him not to write about it! I would strangle him if he were my brother.

The cover is a close-up photo of a naked Barbie doll's torso. I don't know if it's a reference to an earlier book by David, Naked, but it doesn't have anything to do with any of the stories (that I remember). Because of this cover, I read this book at home and did not bring it to work.

Score: 3.4 out of 5 stars
Read in: early January
From: thrift store
Format: paperback
Status: giving away