by JULIET WATERS

In Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, the latest collection of relentlessly hilarious essays by David Sedaris, we learn that members of his family have stopped opening up to him. "In my mind, I'm like a friendly junk man, building things from the little pieces of scrap I find here and there, but my family's started to see things differently. Their personal lives are the so-called pieces of scrap I so casually pick up, and they're sick of it. More and more often their stories begin with the line, ‘You have to swear you will never repeat this.' I always promise, but it's generally understood that my word means nothing."

Even if his family is now reticent about giving him the material that has made previous collections like Me Talk Pretty One Day and Naked so popular, it's clear from this collection that Sedaris will never, ever run out of "so-called pieces of scrap."

People talk about the David Sedaris "shtick" as though writing brutally witty stories about his family is some kind of easy formula he's latched on to. Critics, though usually admiring, tend to treat him as a stand-up comedian for the highbrow hip. Imagine a world, however, where more people could master the formula of finding such evident joy in the most disgusting habits, annoying beliefs and casual sins of their family members. The reason why the Sedaris shtick works is not because he hates his family enough to out their worst side, but because he so obviously kind of likes them for these odious eccentricities. Even "A Million Bubbles," a story about when his father kicked him out of the house for being gay, is tossed off with casual affection. An uncharacteristically brief anecdote, it takes up less than three pages.

The joke is that Sedaris didn't know this was why he was being kicked out. He'd briefly returned to the family home in North Carolina in his early 20s after much drifting as a stoned performance artist. "Our little talk was supposed to be one of those defining moments that shape a person's adult life, but he'd been so uncomfortable with the most important word that he'd left it out completely, saying only ‘I think we both know why I'm doing this.' I guess I could have pinned him down, I just hadn't seen the point. ‘Is it because I'm a failure? A drug addict? A sponge? Come on, Dad, just give me one good reason.'"

Sedaris is not the kind of writer who would ever state some banal philosophy of life. But if he were, it might read something like, "Listen, my family had about a million habits that I found disgusting and incomprehensible but that seemed perfectly normal to them. Before I get bitter about their discomfort with my sexuality, I'm going to work on tolerating their ‘abnormalities.'"

What bitterness there is seems to be about other things. Sedaris comes the closest he ever has to openly expressing a grudge against his father, who had a tendency to promise big things on which he would never deliver. Still his acidic wit manages to soften rather than corrode the memory "… In time we grew to think of him as an actor auditioning for the role of a benevolent millionaire. He'd never get the part but liked the way that the words felt in him mouth… Besides, had things worked out, you wouldn't have been happy for us. We're not that kind of people."

This is comedy, but there's also tragedy. In another story it's evident that one of his sisters has crossed the line from eccentric to self-destructive. But even while capturing the poverty and squalor of her life in gory detail, he manages to honour her damaged but weird dignity. Maybe his family has stopped opening up to him, but you can see why they're at least still talking.

DRESS YOUR FAMILY IN CORDUROY AND DENIM BY DAVID SEDARIS, LITTLE BROWN, HC, 288PP, $24.95