House of Cards

August 31, 2009
Dickerson was a struggling 20-something with a creative writing M.F.A. when he submitted a writing portfolio to Hallmark in part because he had an idea for a novel set at a greeting card company. He takes the job of writing those cards, but what seemed like a natural outlet for his highly verbal sense of humor quickly degenerates in a profoundly alienating environment, where his self-acknowledged “ridiculously intense and enthusiastic” personality rubs almost everybody the wrong way. The tone is set early—“Oh Jesus, I just sent out a cry for help,” Dickerson thinks at his first holiday party, “and everybody heard it, and no one is coming to save me.” His personal life isn't any better, as he struggles to maintain a long-distance relationship with the only woman he's ever dated while coping with the frustration of being a 28-year-old virgin. The behind-the-scenes material is diverting (you'll never be able to read the word “special” on a card again without smirking), but it's the broader drama of the profoundly un-corporate Dickerson's doomed efforts to fit into the corporate world that gives the memoir its staying power.

August 15, 2009
This American Life contributor Dickerson recounts his time working for Hallmark in an amusing but disjointed debut memoir.

In his late 20s, the author, a crossword-puzzle writer and recovering evangelical Christian, landed what he hoped would be his dream job with the famous proprietor of sentiment. During his tenure with the company, Dickerson interacted with a surprisingly wide range of personalities and was passed back and forth between several different departments. Amid the amusing anecdotes of jokes fallen flat, petty passive-aggressive encounters and his bizarre methods of dealing with writer's block, the author interlaces tales of other experiences, both life-altering and pedestrian (hiring a prostitute to touch her breasts, a shopping spree at The Gap). The stories are often provocative, fun to read and horribly familiar to those who have worked for large corporations, but Dickerson's intent—both for the reader and himself—is unclear. In addition, he often piques the reader's interest with leading phrases and language, and then fails to deliver the expected punch or glosses over profound revelations before moving on to a different topic. For example, after announcing that a potentially cancerous lump turned out to be merely an ingrown hair, Dickerson promptly segues into a prolonged story of further attempts to regain the approval of his boss through jokes that ultimately misfire horribly. His tendency to abruptly switch gears among topics like work, sex and religion with no framework to pull them together results in a haphazard stumble through a period in the author's life.

While Dickerson's alternately amusing and painful anecdotes speak clearly to all, a lack of perspective on his time at Hallmark may leave readers wandering as aimlessly as the author so often did at the greeting-card giant.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

October 1, 2009
Ever wondered what its like to write greeting cards for Hallmark? In this debut memoir, puzzle and word wonk Dickerson details just what happened when his career took a turn for the verse. Its pretty tame stuff. There are mercurial bosses and weird coworkers, pretty much what one would expect in any creative line of work. Dickerson showed great promise as a humor writer, but his endlessly ebullient personality kept getting in the way. At one point, he was reprimanded for talking too much during the workday and using too many literary allusions. Raised in an evangelical Christian home, Dickerson pledged to remain a virgin until he was married, which was fine with his graduate-student girlfriend, Jane. But when he realized that most women like to have their breasts touched (with the glaring exception of his significant other), it was the beginning of the end. When Dickerson finally has sex at age 29with a fellow puzzle writerits anticlimactic (sorry, couldnt resist). His memoir is stylish and witty but lacks energy and edge.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)