Woody Allen. Manhattan’s funniest export is unquestionable. However is he New York’s? Well this has come under serious questioning through my fairly new discovery. I’m not a strong reader to say the least, losing commitment particularly easy but when I find a book that I can finish in a day, I know there is something promising there. Enter David Sedaris. A curious, obsessive compulsive, homosexual who was brought up in a town where pretty much all three were condemned.
His novels or "essays" are based utterly around his, let’s say, unconventional family (with Amy being another notable family member). "Dress your family in Corduroy and Denim" is a sporadic and selective collection of anecdotes, some of which are so bizarre that their validity is questionable, but who really cares? From the time he spent Christmas in Denmark with the "six to eight black men" to being mistakenly hired as an "erotic cleaner" we move back and forth, glimpsing into a relatively normal life which transcends into hilarity purely due to Sedaris attention to detail. It is hard to deny the heart breaking tragedy that lies behind these tales yet we become so distracted by this due to his ingenious use of satire and comedy. Whether this be being kicked out by his dad for being gay (something he didn’t even realise at the time) or his sister in law being close to death whilst giving birth it is all juxtaposed with a gentility and optimismwhich is not overpowering but ingratiates itself well to a backdrop of chaos and complexity. He does not want himself or the reader to dwell on the negative; instead he has a different agenda.
He only knows how to do one thing and that is make people laugh and by god he does whether this range from a light chuckle to a belly roar there is never a right public place to read this without looking like a complete nut job. On Wednesday by sheer coincidence I was given a free David Sedaris T-Shirt by an extremely friendly Waterstones assistant, and as David now adorns myself as part of a pyjama combo I am reminded constantly that it is not just people 200 years ago that can and should be considered classics, instead we should look to the quirky, the unconventional as his deceivingly hap hazard approach engages completely
It’s hard to believe that a "maid" from New York is now a Number one bestseller, but it goes to prove that talent will prevail regardless of circumstance and I am most definitely in awe and extreme envy of Sedaris's power, even he himself refuses to accept such a trait! He crosses the border of acceptability and as I tentatively read page after page I found myself giving up on convention and I finally let the book take over. His beatnik lifestyle coupled with a capability to always be in the wrong place at the wrong time result in it being hard to go wrong with Sedaris. Even a country so rife with bigotry as a America can embrace this geeky, hippy kid from North Carolina and it is only by wading through Austen and Bronte that I realised, what I can ask most from a book is one thing ... a laugh.
Hannah Xxx
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