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‘Unquestionably the king of comic writing’ Guardian
‘His best, funniest, most satisfying book’ Time Out
In Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim, 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. This book finds one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today at the peak of his powers.
‘Sardonic, funny, and wry, but at the same time there is a new strain of introspection that makes for a book with more emotional resonance… A Chekhovian brand of comedy’ New York Times
‘Like an updated Thurber: domestic, laconic, slightly warped but never bitter, and extremely funny’ Sunday Times
‘A delight’ Sunday Telegraph
‘His best, funniest, most satisfying book’ Time Out
In Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim, 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. This book finds one of the wittiest and most original writers at work today at the peak of his powers.
‘Sardonic, funny, and wry, but at the same time there is a new strain of introspection that makes for a book with more emotional resonance… A Chekhovian brand of comedy’ New York Times
‘Like an updated Thurber: domestic, laconic, slightly warped but never bitter, and extremely funny’ Sunday Times
‘A delight’ Sunday Telegraph
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Reviews
While other comic writers punt toward the punchline like a dog chasing a ball, he glides through stories from his Greek-American North Carolina upbringing and recent spell in Paris with the grace and poignancy of a metropolitan Garrison Keillor, or Raymond Carver with jokes . . . Funny is one thing but Sedaris is now just as adept at sad, and the messy, melancholy hinterland between the two
This is a man who could capture your heart and lift your spirits while reading out the ingredients of a rice cake. OBSERVER
Mr Sedaris is one of the funniest writers alive . . . Dress Your Family in Corduroy & Denim retains the perfect comic timing of Mr Sedaris's earlier work, but its tone has a more rounded feel. Though the pace may not be so pert, the curves sit well . . . Sedaris's humour is dry, witty and consistently successful. Predictable and obvious it is not
David Sedaris spins both banalities (children playing in snow) and bizarreries (an erotic vacuuming service) into perfectly tuned comic essays
Fans of American humorist David Sedaris won't be disappointed by his excellent new book . . . his witty deadpan style makes each essay a joy. Whether writing about the horrible child next door whose obnoxiousness eventually forces him to move apartment, or telling of his family's thwarted plans to buy a beach house, Sedaris is always smart, hilarious and strangely touching
Sardonic, funny, and wry, but at the same time there is a new strain of introspection that makes for a book with more emotional resonance... A Chekhovian brand of comedy
He makes me laugh so much. In an era when US satire is outpacing our own he's a sharp, humane and hilarious voice that never fails to make you smile - and sometimes weep. Apparently effortless humour is difficult, and precious. He's the real thing
He has taken out some walls in his head, rearranged his mental furniture, and thrown open the property to the public as the house of mirth... Did I also say that it's roll-on-the-floor funny?
[Sedaris] is a sharp, acid-tongued observer of the foibles of human nature, and with this latest collection of short essays, he delves into the seemingly mundane corners of everyday life and comes up with comic gold
Some of the most uproariously acerbic self-analyses you will ever read . . . as funny as ever, but there's also a new note, a touching, even moving element, which takes it beyond comedy into a wry and revealing personal history. It's his best, funniest, most satisfying book . . . he describes his relationship with Hugh with a beauty that takes your breath away. But most of it you'll read because it's very, very funny
If you haven't come across David Sedaris, get in quick before over-exposure sucks him dry
CULTURE, SUNDAY TIMES
For many writers such self-absorption produces the literary equivalent of bellybutton fluff. Sedaris is a rare exception, and seems to extricate small nuggets of comedy gold from that part of his anatomy . . . This is one book that cannot fail to hit that elusive spot which provokes uncontrolled laughter
So often Sedaris's phrasing is beautiful in its piquancy and minimalism... His life is extraordinary in so many ways - the drug addiction, the eccentric family, the crazy jobs, the fame, the globetrotting - but one of the more unlikely achievements here is in making it all seem quite ordinary. Ultimately, his masterstroke is in acting as a bystander in his own story
American humorist Sedaris makes me laugh as much as any writer living today . . . No one renders the pathos, chaos, and impossible variety of daily encounters like Sedaris, who can be brutally honest, hilarious and affectionate about any subject
Through quick, sharp, no-frills writing, Sedaris shines a spotlight into the nooks and crannies of his memory, by turns revealing events, thoughts and feelings that are obscure, yet somehow oddly universal
Sedaris's prose style is so beautifully translucent that you don't even notice that it is a style. Here he gives us a series of vignettes of ordinary life in suburban America, adding up to an autobiography of sorts, and demonstrating the old truism that there is no such thing as ordinary life. Sedaris writes with a gentle but unfailing acuity and a keen eye for the ridiculous, which underlines pretty well everything human beings say and do . . . Sedaris is like an updated Thurber: domestic, laconic, slightly warped but never bitter, and extremely funny
ECONOMIST
Like an updated Thurber: domestic, laconic, slightly warped but never bitter, and extremely funny
If you need a tonic, an utterly absorbing and funny read where characters are just that little bit more oddball than necessary, then Sedaris's strange tales of trying to come out as a gay teenager amid crazy parents, dysfunctional neighbours and sinister friends, should be just the thing. It is rare that a book causes the reader to laugh out loud, but Sedaris manages it in nearly every chapter in this collection of humorous essays about his friends and family
A charming, humorous book . . . These are scenes of family life at its best, written with clarity but also with great affection, through which the character of the author emerges, watchful, self-mocking and full of understanding
These are scenes of family life at its best, written with clarity but also with great affection, through which the character of the author emerges, watchful, self-mocking and full of understanding.
A deadpan, darkly comical portrait of the American underbelly . . . Sedaris shares something of [Alan] Bennett's detached curiosity, and they both have a thirst for amusement
Sedaris is a man of many surprises, with an unusual and inspiring store cupboard of stories and anecdotes that range from his childhood misdemeanours to his job as a cleaner. This latest book is a masterpiece . . . Not only does he possess a cracking sense of humour and literary style, but he excels as the butt of his own jokes. This is a man who could capture your heart and lift your spirits while reading out the ingredients of a rice cake
Self-deprecation is Sedaris's stock in trade, reality literature his speciality, and once again his family life and early adulthood are the subject in this latest collection of comic autobiographical pieces
Literary tongues are wagging in anticipation of David Sedaris's new book . . . His skewed view points of life are hilariously offbeat, and his commentaries on New Yorkers, Southerners or any other ethnic or regional folk are side-splittingly accurate