David Ellis DickersonRecensioni

(Disclaimer: I won this book in a Goodreads First Reads contest.)

I feel like I should have enjoyed this book more than I should have. By all things considered, I should have -- in a book blurb, [a:David Ellis Dickerson|3255461|David Ellis Dickerson|http://www.goodreads.com/images/nophoto/nophoto-U-50x66.jpg] was favorably compared to [a:David Sedaris|2849|David Sedaris|http://photo.goodreads.com/authors/1213737698p2/2849.jpg] (a beloved favorite of mine); he grew up a fundamentalist Christian and became disillusioned; and he enjoys the language with which he writes so much that it borders on the fringe of ultimate nerdiness. All of these I could respect and relate to in the same book.

However, Dickerson is no Sedaris, although I must give credit where it's due: I did find House of Cards a thoroughly entertaining read, and there were many a parts in which I found myself guffawing (most notably, with the jokes that language nerds fully appreciate and will never find tiresome).

House of Cards is a beautifully-written memoir, but like I said, I didn't like it as much as I should have, as much as I expected. Even now the only memorable sections were during the break-up with Jane and the instances of backstabbing, passive-aggressiveness by what seems the entirety of the company. Perhaps they were the only parts in which I felt connected to the author's experiences; perhaps I'm merely at a loss to identify with the social ostracization due to an intelligence no one around you understands -- but that's a personal disconnect. Dickerson is in a league (nearly) all his own in intelligence, and that I can, at least, certainly admire.

Overall, House of Cards was a diverting read, as well as quite uniquely informative; it's not everyday, after all, that you're able to learn the inner-workings of a greeting card corporate machine and the writers that fill their hallways.

That said, I wish David happiness and luck in his new home of Florida (or wherever he may be now). He's certainly the type that will embrace that fortune and happiness with the enthusiasm it deserves.

This was way better than I expected. I could relate to the author better than I expected since I am girl, although when he dumped his fiance and didn't even realize he was being an ass about it all I definitely was not on his side! I am not nearly as good at writing as he is, so part of the time I was thinking how similar I am to him then other times I was thinking how I would like to be like him (academically/professionally).

Several times throughout the book I was shaking my head at him, like how could he not realize from even the first "you talk too much" comment that he was in trouble--I guessed it right away, and felt bad for him each time he did something that was going to get him in trouble. Or when he decided to search for Mardi Gras pictures, I was begging him to please stop before it was too late. Then it was. Although, if I were a gross boy and then got called out on it, I would have wanted to know how they found out, if it was really caught on camera.



*received the book for free through Goodreads First Reads

Entertaining. There's a lot here that's familiar to me: the religious upbringing (mine wasn't as extreme, thankfully), the professional and personal mistakes, the overthinking, etc. It's kind of a quarter century crisis fable.

Surprisingly touching and very poignant at times. Unsurprisingly, I empathized with the author's feeling that he was an outsider for having a different kind of intellectual life than those around him. The author is very, VERY different from me, but his quirky writing style drew me in and helped me relate.

OK – when a person’s memoir mentions that his dream is to write greeting cards – how can you not want to read it? Obviously someone needs to write these things we attach to presents, send when someone dies, pass around the office when someone has a birthday…but I never put much thought into the thought behind the card.

David Ellis Dickerson did. Described on the back of the book as “a fundamentalist-raised twenty-seven-year-old virgin social misfit” – Dickerson writes of the time that he worked at Hallmark Cards with a great deal of self-deprecating humor and growing self awareness.

“…in the Main Writing staff. My new co-workers were more than two dozen women in their forties and sixties, half of whom were unmarried and childless. They loved nothing better than to work on condolence and grief cards. If you stood in the hallway outside Main Writing, you could practically smell the Zoloft. All this leads to a stark change in creative culture, and nothing epitomized this change more than the Crying Room.”

Though drawn in first with the promise of a look into the corporate greeting card business, I started to become far more interested in the development of Dave as he underwent huge changes in his previously sheltered world. He gets his dream job, moves away from everyone he knows, deals with a long distance relationship with his fiancé and is in the midst of a great spiritual upheaval.

While much of the book is humorous, the discoveries Dave makes about his spirituality provide small anchors in his story. “This was a service where God met you in mid-verb, and that’s the way I’ve always felt, I can be awed by the night sky or by standing on a seashore, just like anyone. But the stories of grace I remember most and love the best and the ones where joy comes as a complete surprise, the bird that flutters accidentally onto the bus. I looked around at this awkward, well-intended, completely human happiness, and thought, If they can keep this up every week, I’m definitely coming back.”

Contrasted, of course, with zingers about his previous religious life like, “(Jane was Catholic and obviously liberal, and I’d been avoiding both Catholics and liberalism since I’d converted at eight.) But as I watched her over the next several months, I kept thinking, What a shame. Smart women sure are sexy. In the conservative Christian churches I’d grown up in, aggressively smart women were discouraged from showing up.”

One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the realization that the reader gets that the inside of Dave’s head is a bit of a sheltered environment. Because he is the leader on this journey through his life, one trusts his version of events because that’s all we have. But as his tenure at Hallmark continues, I started to see him through his co-workers eyes. I started to realize just how different he was from most of the people there, and that what we were reading wasn’t really about an everyday man in a unique work environment, but a very unique person learning to become a man in the everyday world. It’s even uncomfortable at times as he gets moved around the company, as his managers (and he) try to discover just where Dave belongs.

“At the end of my second month, however, Evan came by and said, with an embarrassed look, “We have to talk.” He led me into the Quiet Room, closed the door, cleared his throat, and said, “Dave, you’re using too many literary allusions in your casual speech, and people are complaining.”

“I defy you to quickly come up with a sensible reaction to that statement.”

“House of Cards” was a very enjoyable book with more to it that I thought. The look behind the scenes of an industry that, in essence, sells feelings and sentiment to the world, was very interesting. The look behind the scenes of a man trying to find his place in that world, turned out to be even more so.½