House of Cards
Love, Faith, and Other Social Expressions
By David Ellis Dickerson
(Riverhead Hardcover, Hardcover, 9781594488818, 384pp.)
Publication Date: October 1, 2009
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook
Categories: Personal Memoirs
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An original and hilarious memoir by an ex-greeting card writer, virgin fundamentalist, and This American Life contributor that chronicles how, in the belly of the "social expression" industry, he learned to love, thrive, and finally feel comfortable in his own skin.
David Dickerson's dream is to write greeting cards-Valentine's Day, sympathy, and holiday cards. Greeting cards offer him the chance to indulge his gifted obsession with words, puns, and humor. But when he manages to win a coveted slot at Hallmark, he soon discovers his own limited life experience has left him unprepared for sentiments he writes about in his cards: As a fundamentalist-raised, twenty-seven-year-old virgin social misfit, he knows that his world is decidedly circumscribed.
In House of Cards, Dickerson tells of his time at Hallmark and how the experience and the cast of characters he meets there open his eyes to a much larger and emotionally rich world. In comic and sometimes cringe-inducing detail, he chronicles his bumpy journey to maturity, from straitlaced evangelical Christian to (relatively) modern single guy. As Dickerson navigates supervisors and colleagues who don't understand him, he learns what it takes to connect with this new lot of personalities and how to write funny lines that resonate with the heart of America. Along the way he confronts his past, his beliefs, his relationships, even his virginity, as he ponders whether his struggle to stay true to the life he knows is worth it.
Endearing and idiosyncratic, House of Cards is the very human story of one man who, step by step, stumble by stumble, embarrassment by embarrassment, finds his place in the world.
For seven years, David Dickerson wrote birthday rhymes and sympathy wishes at Hallmark. His true passion, however, is for unusual cards. He talks about his book, House of Cards, and solves listeners' greeting card emergencies. More at NPR.org
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