With the publication of Alternadad, Neal Pollack became the spokesperson for a new generation of parents. Pollack, a self-styled party guy known mostly for outrageous literary antics, recounts how he and his wife became responsible parents without sacrificing their passion for pop culture. From an ill-fated family trip to the Austin City Limits Festival, to yanking his son out of an absurd corporate gymnastics class, to dealing with the child’s ongoing biting problem, Pollack captures the wonders, terrors, and idiocies of parenting today. Alternadad is both an engaging and amusing memoir of fatherhood, and a fascinating portrait of a new version of the American family.
Alternadad
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
His novel Never Mind the Pollacks, a hilarious treat, used a fictional "Neal Pollack" to parody the excesses and idiocy of current pop culture. But his self-awareness becomes more self-indulgent (though still witty) in this straightforward memoir of life with his artist wife, the couple's decision a few years ago to have a baby and the attendant strains that his son, Elijah, wreaks on their hipster lifestyle. Pollack details the kind of problems that can be found in almost every memoir on child-rearing, from how to clean up baby poop to figuring out how best to be a "Dad" while being a friend. But he never really defines what it is that makes his parenting so alternative other than that he wants to be a parent and still get high and stay out late. Nevertheless, Pollack hasn't lost his flair for tongue-in-cheek commentary ("I'd begun exerting cultural control over my son; I was going to shape his mind until he was exactly like me"). (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
From Booklist
Pop-culture writer Pollack has a reputation as a fun-loving, party-going hipster. For years he danced awkwardly from relationship to relationship, until he found the person he was looking for and settled down (sort of). Now we learn his deep, dark secret: he loves his little boy, loves him with a goofy, all-consuming love that makes him (and the reader) break out into smiles nearly constantly. This book, which recounts the author's transition from hipster guy to hipster dad, is both laugh-out-loud funny and cry-softly poignant. Written in Pollack's in-your-face, no-holds-barred style, it just may be the most offbeat book about parenting ever written, and fans of the author's previous, equally idiosyncratic books--including that pop-culture staple The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature (2000)--will be utterly enraptured. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
25 of 26 people found the following review helpful
By A. Helfer
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
Although I preferred the author's prior "Neal Pollack" persona, I found Alternadad to be an enjoyable read. At its best, Pollack's writing here reminds me vaguely of Nick Hornby's fiction about men-children assuming new responsibilities (High Fidelity, About a Boy) and David Sedaris's essays, which often portray intensely human moments against the backdrop of dysfunctional family relationships. You can get a sense of what Pollack's new voice is like if you visit his eponymous nealpollack blog.
The memoir covers Pollack's journey from privileged teen in the high upper middle class suburbs of Phoenix to mid-30s college graduate with wife and child. Along the way, he establishes that he and his wife pursue a nonconformist lifestyle, refusing to work for anyone but themselves. He is a freelance writer, and she is an artist. He also writes candidly about his relationship with pot. If this book had been published in the early 1990s, I'm sure Pollack and his wife would have been labeled Gen X slackers. (The vogue term, apparently, is hipsters.)
The choice of a nonconformist lifestyle has its costs, including downward mobility. Much of Alternadad describes the trials, tribulations, and tensions the Pollacks endure shortly before and after their son is born. It's clear that they want to be good parents to their son. However, lack of means forces them to confront hard realities. Healthcare isn't cheap. Daycare isn't cheap. An organic diet isn't cheap. Good housing isn't cheap. Pot isn't cheap. The privileged, secure life of the high upper middle class doesn't grow on trees.
At the same time, having a son also presents new non-monetary obligations and responsibilities that tax the do-what-you-want-when-you-want-to aspect of their lifestyle. Irrespective of dad's desire to cruise the bars or make the music scene, the kid needs care and demands attention. And then there are the behavioral issues in daycare . . . .
Alternadad also exposes the influence of media and information overload on young parents. Pollack's wife seems to jump on the Internet at every turn, looking for answers to everything from pressing health questions (e.g., what do you do when your toddler has spaghetti up his nose) to concerns about diet and schooling. Television--and especially children's television--also figures prominently in the Pollack household. Pollack offers some entertaining observations about the various characters that are all too familiar to parents of recent vintage.
I'm sure many will disagree with parenting decisions that the Pollacks made. And some of those decisions are cringeworthy. However, that's part of what learning to be parents is all about. If you can hold your judgment of those decisions in abeyance, Alternadad is an amusing book about a youngish couple's efforts to raise a kid in our media-saturated consumer society.
The memoir covers Pollack's journey from privileged teen in the high upper middle class suburbs of Phoenix to mid-30s college graduate with wife and child. Along the way, he establishes that he and his wife pursue a nonconformist lifestyle, refusing to work for anyone but themselves. He is a freelance writer, and she is an artist. He also writes candidly about his relationship with pot. If this book had been published in the early 1990s, I'm sure Pollack and his wife would have been labeled Gen X slackers. (The vogue term, apparently, is hipsters.)
The choice of a nonconformist lifestyle has its costs, including downward mobility. Much of Alternadad describes the trials, tribulations, and tensions the Pollacks endure shortly before and after their son is born. It's clear that they want to be good parents to their son. However, lack of means forces them to confront hard realities. Healthcare isn't cheap. Daycare isn't cheap. An organic diet isn't cheap. Good housing isn't cheap. Pot isn't cheap. The privileged, secure life of the high upper middle class doesn't grow on trees.
At the same time, having a son also presents new non-monetary obligations and responsibilities that tax the do-what-you-want-when-you-want-to aspect of their lifestyle. Irrespective of dad's desire to cruise the bars or make the music scene, the kid needs care and demands attention. And then there are the behavioral issues in daycare . . . .
Alternadad also exposes the influence of media and information overload on young parents. Pollack's wife seems to jump on the Internet at every turn, looking for answers to everything from pressing health questions (e.g., what do you do when your toddler has spaghetti up his nose) to concerns about diet and schooling. Television--and especially children's television--also figures prominently in the Pollack household. Pollack offers some entertaining observations about the various characters that are all too familiar to parents of recent vintage.
I'm sure many will disagree with parenting decisions that the Pollacks made. And some of those decisions are cringeworthy. However, that's part of what learning to be parents is all about. If you can hold your judgment of those decisions in abeyance, Alternadad is an amusing book about a youngish couple's efforts to raise a kid in our media-saturated consumer society.
75 of 90 people found the following review helpful
By John Hodgman
Format:Hardcover
Long before he secured actual, competent representation, I briefly served as Neal Pollack's professional literary agent. Therefore, my opinion may be somewhat biased, in the sense that I feel for him the same kind of weary I felt for all of my old bloodsucking clients, the ones who kept bothering me all day with their money troubles while I was trying to drink brandy and play minesweeper (that means you, Bruce Campbell!)
But I will confess that ALTERNADAD was a complete and happy surprise to me--hilarious, as all Neal's work is, but heartfelt and true. This book is fully deblustered of the old "Neal Pollack, Greatest Living Writer" persona of his seminal early work, replaced instead by an even older "Neal Pollack" going back to his days at the "Chicago Reader:" the just-plain-good-writer full of caustic wit and human sympathy.
This is a story that documents a new kind of hipster parental mood in some respects, but it is really a much simpler story about a man who loves his wife and son. Neal's ability to say just that puts paid to any rumor that he was ever merely a 90's era irony-drenched ha ha man, and makes ALTERNADAD the best third-book debut I've ever read.
That is all.
But I will confess that ALTERNADAD was a complete and happy surprise to me--hilarious, as all Neal's work is, but heartfelt and true. This book is fully deblustered of the old "Neal Pollack, Greatest Living Writer" persona of his seminal early work, replaced instead by an even older "Neal Pollack" going back to his days at the "Chicago Reader:" the just-plain-good-writer full of caustic wit and human sympathy.
This is a story that documents a new kind of hipster parental mood in some respects, but it is really a much simpler story about a man who loves his wife and son. Neal's ability to say just that puts paid to any rumor that he was ever merely a 90's era irony-drenched ha ha man, and makes ALTERNADAD the best third-book debut I've ever read.
That is all.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
After seeing glowing reviews for this book in Texas Monthly and Men's Health, I bought this book with the credit I got for returning a copy of Kinky Friedman's book I'd been given as a gag gift. I read it aloud to my girlfriend as we drove our way down the Oregon coastal highway, and it made the miles fly by. We laughed along, cooed at the cute pics of Neal's kid, Elijah, and were deeply shaken by the similarities between our lives and the scene Pollack paints as his pre-daddy days.
Yes, the book has been done before - as in Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and Paul Reiser's Babyhood. But Pollack offers his own alternate edge and provides what may ironically be the definition of mainstream fatherhood for our generation.
I truly appreciate how this book holds nothing back and allows to see Neal's family in its most unvarnished state. There are no (obvious) secrets and nothing is off-limits.
My only criticism of the book is that it seems to run out of steam about 3/4 of the way through the book. And because of the nature of the fact that Elijah and his parents are still growing and learning, there's no conclusion. Nonetheless, I was still left with a need for more closure as I turned the last page of the book. Perhaps that's why I still visit the blog every once in a while.
Yes, the book has been done before - as in Bill Cosby's Fatherhood and Paul Reiser's Babyhood. But Pollack offers his own alternate edge and provides what may ironically be the definition of mainstream fatherhood for our generation.
I truly appreciate how this book holds nothing back and allows to see Neal's family in its most unvarnished state. There are no (obvious) secrets and nothing is off-limits.
My only criticism of the book is that it seems to run out of steam about 3/4 of the way through the book. And because of the nature of the fact that Elijah and his parents are still growing and learning, there's no conclusion. Nonetheless, I was still left with a need for more closure as I turned the last page of the book. Perhaps that's why I still visit the blog every once in a while.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Raising the Cool Kid
Neal Pollack's expedition into parenting is the subject matter in this alternately hilarious and seriously introspective look at what it's like to raise a child in today's... Read more
Published 3 months ago by jflash22
2.0 out of 5 stars
Fluffy navel gazing
As a resident of the neighborhood in Austin where some of the "action" in the book took place, I'd say Pollack got the details right. Read more
Published on October 6, 2009 by CB
5.0 out of 5 stars
So What?
I find it amusing when reviewers argue that Neal's funny and engaging book isn't such a big deal because a lot of people have kids and like alternative music. Read more
Published on August 21, 2007 by Charles Rowe
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alternadad Review
I bought this book for my husband on his first Father's Day. He loves it and he often reads segments of it to me that he finds particularily funny.
Published on July 17, 2007 by M. Weiss
3.0 out of 5 stars
Liking alternative music does not make an "alternative" dad
Unlike apparently many reviewers here, I am not familiar with Neil Pollack's previous books and other published articles in magazines and webzines. Read more
Published on May 19, 2007 by Paul Allaer
1.0 out of 5 stars
Hypocritical On All Levels
Neal seems to miss the entire point of being "COOL", Cool people do not brag about their "coolness", you either are or your not. Read more
Published on May 8, 2007 by E.M. Siegel
4.0 out of 5 stars
A fun read
Alternadad is a funny, at times touching, memoir of marriage and parenting. Though Pollack is no Sedaris in the humor department (at no point in reading Alternadad did my sides... Read more
Published on April 25, 2007 by Librum
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not Just For Parents
Whether you've just entered your twenties and are thinking about things like what to major in in College, or you can see 30 looming on the horizon (or fading behind you, for that... Read more
Published on March 26, 2007 by Kristina
5.0 out of 5 stars
Alternadad
I can not count the number of times that these words made me smile. This was a wonderful story from what seems to be a guy that's got it together (whether he knows it or not). Read more
Published on March 22, 2007 by Mindy Duran
4.0 out of 5 stars
Punk Rock Meets Dr. Spock
Gen-X slacker encounters fatherhood and finds it to his liking. Neal Pollack is determined to be a "cool" and "alternative" Dad, whatever that means. Read more
Published on March 18, 2007 by Kevin Quinley
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