Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim
By David Sedaris
Little, Brown, 272 pages, $24.95

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim is the latest collection of 27 essays from David Sedaris, the NPR commentator, and as usual, the bulk of his writing is focused on the assorted dysfunctions of his family, although it's been noted that one sister, Amy (star of the Comedy Central series, Strangers With Candy) is exempt from her brother's sharply observed comments. I first encountered Sedaris when I read his collection, Barrel Fever, but it wasn't until I saw a production of The Santaland Diaries, wherein Sedaris relates his experience as a department store elf, that I became a fan. In this book, Sedaris provides us with a sort of sequel to his popular holiday piece when a Dutch gentleman explains to him the legend of St. Nicholas and his helpers, "Six to Eight Black Men."

The Sedaris family may be no more dysfunctional than any other American family, but these musings make it seem so. What we think of as a "normal" upbringing seems to have escaped these children as the author relates his father's big plans on acquiring a summer house by the North Carolina seashore. As gay men, we can relate to being at an all-guy slumber party that results in a strip poker game. Envy overcomes us as he relates his hopes of being left the entire estate when a wealthy aunt dies or being mistaken for a young man's parent in a hotel lobby. There is the mixed emotional experience of becoming an uncle to "Baby Einstein" when the first grandchild enters their lives.

At one point in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, in the story "Blood Work," Sedaris even pays a sort of homage to Truman Capote as he writes of a job as a professional house cleaner. He discusses being mistaken by one employer for an erotic housecleaner. In his collection, Music for Chameleons, Capote wrote "A Day's Work," about accompanying his cleaning lady on her Manhattan rounds.

Two people receive special treatment in Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim. One is his lover, Hugh. Sedaris discusses their experiences trying to find a decent-sized European apartment, eating at an L.A. diner and giving directions to a lost traveler one night in Normandy. The other is Sedaris' late mother. Alternately funny and sad are stories about her love of old movies, being locked outside on a wintry day and forced to play in the snow, or her support during his coming out process before her death from cancer.

Were I ever to meet David Sedaris, I'd want to know one thing: does he change the names of the people in his stories (other than those in his family)? I'd ask this, because I want to know if Thad Pope is the real name of the classmate whose rock throwing incident resulted in an expensive dentist bill. (Somehow, I suspect it is.)

I read Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim on a long flight, so if you find yourself in a similar situation (or not) this latest collection is a genuine treat!