50 Book Challenge #23: Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim

I stayed up half the night reading Me Talk Pretty One Day when I checked it out a few years ago, muffling my snorts and shrieks of laughter with a pillow as I sought to avoid waking my grandparents (I do a lot of reading when I go back to Texas). I'm glad that I read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim here in Cambridge, since it would have been much less of an escape had I read it while visiting family.

DYF is less riotously funny than Me Talk Pretty One Day or Naked. It's got more of a serious, introspective vibe and deals mostly with Sedaris's relationships with his parents and siblings. I hadn't realized or had forgotten that he grew up in the South, and when elements of that culture seep in (references to schools being desegregated, or his shock at seeing a white housemaid), it can be jarring. His siblings are mostly abnormal, and the thought of his sister living a few blocks away from me and going through my trash (a distinct possibility--she lives in Somerville) is even weirder.

If you've liked Sedaris's previous books, go ahead and pick this up, but be aware that it's less fun than his other collections.