Amy Sedaris offers a fresh, comic response to all the Martha Stewart-like books that have turned entertaining into a blood sport. Anna Mundowapproves
When the New York Timesattempted last year to describe Amy Sedaris, its tone was deadpan. "Ms Sedaris," it announced, "a playwright and comic performer, who has long portrayed the oversized, the deformed and the delusional, lives in a small, dark apartment in the West Village with a collection of plastic meats, a few stuffed squirrels, books on skin disorders, some plastic layer cakes, wallpaper made from candy wrappers she purchased in Chinatown, sandwiches made out of felt and her celebrated rabbit, Dusty."
The Timesplayed it straight because, let's face it, you can't out-crazy Amy. She is, after all, the performer who invented Jerri Blank, a character inspired by an actual drug-abuser turned motivational speaker called Florrie Fisher. When a friend stumbled across a 1970s documentary featuring the appalling Florrie and passed it along to Sedaris, Jerri Blank was born: the 46-year-old walking embarrassment who returns to high school after decades of drug abuse and prostitution.
Sedaris began playing Jerri in Comedy Central's Strangers with Candy, a TV show and later a film that was described by one critic as "a wry and puerile comment on our cultural obsession with prolonged adolescence". Sedaris must have particularly liked "puerile". Not that she goes out of her way to shock, just to push it a little. In one play, for instance, written with her brother, the writer David Sedaris, she played a young woman who became a TV star when her face had been mutilated in an encounter with a boat propeller. That's her kind of tragedy.
Like all true comics (she dislikes being called either an actress or a comedian), Sedaris mercilessly exposes our culture's obsessions and anxieties. Who better, then, to write about entertaining? I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influenceis the Sedaris antidote to Martha Stewart, to volumes of advice on muslin draping and linen folding, to hand-stencilled invitations and home-grown centrepieces, to entertaining as a blood sport.
I Like Yousays stop showing off and just have fun. Strange fun, perhaps but, come on, who among us when hosting a children's party has not longed to play something like "Gypsy" - "Blindfold all the children and then drive them across town. Drop them off in a place they have never been before. Remove all their blindfolds and drive away. Their goal is to make it back home."? Or "Jr Astronomer: Have the children lie in a neighbour's driveway and look up at the stars?"
There are also real recipes, many from the Sedaris family's Greek background (spanakopita or spinach pie; kotopoulo pilaf or chicken and rice), invaluable gift suggestions and a stern section on rabbit housing specifications.
Like all seasoned hostesses, Sedaris advises you to start at the beginning. With yourself. "In all the land there is only one of you, possibly two, but seldom more than 16," she observes, "know your strengths and weaknesses. If you have thick ankles, wear pants. If you're boring, pick exciting music to play. If you are a lousy cook, order out." Her "Learn More About Yourself" checklist suggests, among other things, that you, "Make a self-esteem collage using pictures of other people you wish you were. Sleep with someone Chinese. Put something small in your . . ." Never mind.
Having decided that you are capable of having a party, you should next invite people (Amy tells how) who in turn should respond. To guests, she says:"Do not cancel at the last minute or give a message to a child to inform the host. And don't bother explaining why you can't attend because anything after 'because' is bullshit."
Sedaris is bracing on the subject of threshold etiquette. To the guest, "Don't enter saying 'I hate Florida' or 'I hate my life, I'm so depressed I almost killed myself last night.' Yeah, well you didn't." To the host: "The last thing people want to hear as they settle onto the couch with a drink and an appetiser is, 'What does everybody want to listen to?' Actually, that is the second-to-last thing people want to hear. The first is, 'All right, everybody take off your shoes and sit on the floor, we're going Japanese!'"
Who else would tell you that an ironing board covered with a tablecloth makes a perfect cocktail bar or sum up pre-dinner advice in two words, "Pour heavy"? If you have ever been plagued by guests who bring food that needs to be assembled/cooked or a desiccated bouquet picked up at the petrol station you will see them chastised in these pages. If, on the other hand, you are bad at introductions you might heed the following, "Try to avoid saying something that could be embarrassing like, 'This is Barbara, she can't have children,' or 'Matt's on mood stabilisers'."
Sedaris instructs the host to scan the room periodically for bores and blowhards. "If you see someone boring someone else, just be grateful it's not you," she advises. "If you see someone hogging the conversation, create an opening and try to include someone else. Have something ready in your apron pocket. My line is, 'Yes, paella is very traditional to the Spaniards.' Or, 'Wasn't that British territory?' If you see a shy person, ask them some question like, 'Why are you so shy? Tell everyone, we're all listening.'"
Then on to the food, which Sedaris reassuringly divides into Menus by Colour, Menus by Texture, Menus by Theme, Menus by Flavour, Menus by Decoration, having already doled out some eminently practical and some extremely bizarre shopping wisdom. Let's just say that organic lemons will never look quite the same again. It would be sacrilege to take Ms Sedaris seriously. Nevertheless, she makes a convincing case here for a return to humility and honesty in what used to be called "having people over" - before houses resembled hotels and before there was such a thing as a "master wardrobe". Sedaris wants us to lighten up.
And to own up. Who has not wanted an unexpected guest to leave? ("Pull out one of those excuses you've been saving in your back pocket, like, 'I'd love for you to stay, but they're fumigating for rats.'"). Who does not need advice on entertaining alcoholics? ("Make sure it's a large gathering. This way, until the alcoholic begins removing their clothes or dangling the cat out the window they can sort of blend in.") Who does not have something to hide? ("A good trick is to fill your medicine chest with marbles. Nothing announces a nosey guest better than an avalanche of marbles hitting a porcelain sink.")
I Like Youis also, refreshingly, a book for people of a certain age; the technically mature but barely grown-up whose guests are increasingly the grieving and the sick. In such situations, Sedaris advises that you "Put away your Judy Collins tape, razor blades and rainstorm sound machines. Sharpen your ability to look concerned while thinking of other things." She also offers the afflicted her "Night of Beauty: what we'll be left with is squeaky clean skin and of course that growth. Next I will be spraying your face with home-made grapeseed water. This does nothing, but it's included in the cost." Finally, Sedaris keeps the goodbyes short, checks for loiterers in the stairwell and for anyone passed out in her bed before cuddling up with her rabbit Dusty and the ghost of her imaginary boyfriend, Ricky.
• I Like You: Hospitality Under the Influenceby Amy Sedaris is published by Sceptre Books, £12. 99