One of the best board games on the market right now is "Apples to Apples." In it, players select from their hand of noun cards (examples: "cocaine," "red raspberries," "golf ball-sized hail") the one that best fits a randomly selected adjective ("delicious," "misunderstood," "earthy," etc.). Inevitably, someone will draw an unfortunate noun card (like "Hiroshima" or "Helen Keller") and have to figure out the best, most tasteful way to deal with it. Most will save the card until an adjective like "tragic" or "inspirational" is drawn. But there are some who can see the true comic brilliance of playing "Anne Frank" as "hilarious." David Sedaris is one of these people.
In the story "Possession" from his latest collection of essays, "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim," Sedaris makes that very connection. The apartment-hunting author stumbles upon the Anne Frank House and dreams of the real estate potential of the property: "In plays and movies it always appears drab and old ladyish, but open the curtains and the first words that come to mind are not 'I still believe all people are really good at heart' but 'Who do I have to knock off in order to get this apartment?'"
Don't expect any latent pangs of social responsibility: Sedaris experiences a fleeting moment of remorse upon reading a quote reminding him of the suffering of the Frank family, but his regret is wiped away when he spots an even more beautiful apartment through the window.
"Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" is no "Chicken Soup for the Soul;" though there are stories about love and family, they're delivered with twists that strip away any illusion that they are heartwarming, inspirational tales.
Take, for example, "The End of the Affair," about Sedaris' relationship with his partner Hugh. After seeing the film referenced in the title, Sedaris reflects on his own real-life romance: "Hugh and I have been together for so long that in order to arouse extraordinary passion, we need to engage in physical combat. Once, he hit me on the back of the head with a broken wineglass, and I fell to the floor pretending to be unconscious. That was romantic, or would have been had he rushed to my side rather than stepping over my body to fetch the dustpan."
At least Sedaris is consistent in his utter lack of sympathy; at other points in the book, he compares his sister's feet to the "leathery paws of great apes," likens his father's clothes to that of "a roadie for Iron Maiden," and asks his Jewish friend when he's going to buy his Christmas tree and wreath ("Oh, I get it. You're looking for a cheap wreath.").
Sedaris first big hit was his second book, 1997's sartorially-opposite "Naked," a similarly-constructed volume of essays that covered, among other things, the author's childhood tics, his flirtation with amateur drama that included forays into a dialect he dubs "Fakespeare," and a visit from a family friend called "Dinah the Christmas Whore."
"Naked" and subsequent publications "Holidays on Ice" and "Me Talk Pretty One Day" were big successes for the same reason that "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" has appeared on the New York Times Best-Seller List for 14 weeks: people can relate to the almost obsessive focus on bizarre everyday events that aren't actually so uncommon.
Sedaris is like that friend who, during bouts of idiosyncrasy-sharing, always takes it one step further. You'll say, "You know how sometimes you try to trap a spider so you can take it outside without killing it but you hurt it by mistake and have to squash it to put it out of its misery?" and Sedaris will counter with, "Yeah, and you know how sometimes you're trying to free a mouse from a trap using the end of a metal ruler, you accidentally maim it, and you have to drown it in a bucket of water, holding it under with a broom handle?"
This happens in "Nuit of the Living Dead," the final, funniest, and most representative story in "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim." "Nuit of the Living Dead" is appealing not for its humor (first line: "I was on the front porch, drowning a mouse in a bucket when this van pulled up, which was strange.") but also its humanity. Like us, Sedaris feels bad when he hurts the mouse, is scared when he goes down into his creepy basement and is confused about why there is a meat cleaver "lying for no apparent reason upon a photograph of our neighbor's grandchild."
"Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" lets readers sort through their own dirty laundry; anyone with a "dysfunctional" family can relate to Sedaris' manic tales of his own eccentricities. Sedaris never apologizes for his self-absorption or celebrates his own wittiness. Rather, he simply lets his stories unfold in their own delightfully demented way, his deadpan delivery just like that friend of yours whose "my boss had a rubber hand" story kills every time.
