Book Review: Neal Pollack's Alternadad

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 matter) there's at least one thing that everyone has in common: parenthood.

Wait, what? Seriously. Think about it: you are either a parent yourself, or you'll eventually become one, or your friends are parents or maybe you simply have parents (and the therapy bills to prove it). Any way you slice it, the act of parenting has a tremendous effect on all of our lives. Ergo, a memoir about turning from a bar-hopping, show-going, pot-smoking person into a child-having, mortgage-paying, healthcare-worrying-about, pot-smoking person can be interesting to us all regardless of our parenting status, right? Right.

We're talking about former Austinite Neal Pollack's recently released book Alternadad, here. In each of Pollack's two earlier works (The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and Never Mind the Pollacks: A Rock and Roll Novel), the focus has been on eponymous personae whose overblown existences mock journalistic types, rock music, celebrity and just about everything else. While these first two books take a certain amount of institutional knowledge to really get the jokes, Alternadad is a more accessible work that deals with issues that are less endemic to people of a particular social group. Any personas Pollack has used in the past are dropped along with some of the ceaseless satire, but his sense of irony remains in tact.

More about the book after the jump.

Alternadad is billed as being a memoir and "... a critique of and celebration of [hipster] culture, as well as a call for a new style of parenting." At a deeper level, it's simply a grown-up coming of age story about having your rock and roll cake and eating it too, kid or no kid. Sure, the focus is obviously on Neal and his wife Regina attempting to maintain their identities after the birth of their son Elijah. There are poop stories and "waking up at 6:00 AM with the kid" stories. However, the appeal of this book for a wider audience is that at some point all (well-adjusted) adults end up sacrificing some portion of the pursuit of cool for things like healthy relationships, a solid income and yes, health insurance. This happens even when you live in Austin, albeit (as with all things) Austinites tend to do it with a certain level of inked-up, left of mainstream style. Pollock is no exception, as his title suggests. In this book, he uses equal measures of wit, unapologetic neurosis and heart-warming (if slightly ironic) epiphanies to tell the tale of how that transition into true adulthood came about for him: namely, fatherhood.

If you are a parent and a reader of Austinist, it's likely that you'll be able to relate to this story's fundamental basis. Neal and Regina are parents in Austin trying to raise their child to be "cool" and trying not to lose their own coolness entirely while they're at it. They struggle with artist's incomes and the high price of living in central Austin. Neal chronicles his hilarious foray into musician-hood and his sometimes scary encounters with some of the denizens of the Harmon Triangle (just east of Hyde Park next to I-35).

As you may have guessed, much of Alternadad takes place here in Austin where Pollack lived (and occasionally returns) for most of his son's life thus far. The book also features a sprinkling of photographs by Neal's wife Regina and Austin photographer Debbie Smith. Pollack is currently on tour doing readings of Alternadad and will be in Austin on Thursday, March 8th, at Bookpeople. He'll also be speaking at SXSW Interactive (exact date and topic TBA). Other tour dates, additional writings and more can be found at www.nealpollack.com.

Alternadad by Neal Pollack
Pantheon
ISBN: 0375423621
$23.95 [Buy it!]

Contact the author of this article or email tips@austinist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Kristina B in Arts & Entertainment on January 29, 2007 3:15 PM 0 Comments

Comments [rss]

benji

Alex P. Keaton wasn’t straight-edge. He was Republican.

Big Diff.

genie

You know, the French language didn't even have a word for 'baby' until the 1880's. The fact that a younger human should have a separate identity and a separate noun was alien. Seriously, 'bebe' is one of the newer words in French. Until then, they just called them "dream crushers".

Busybody

And the BEST thing about this? I grew up in a fairly hippy-heavy area. The parents who were hippy-est of all had the straightest-edge kids in the neighborhood. It's their own version of rebellion. Think Alex P. Keaton. I predict the same fate for many of today's hipper-than-thou parents. Irony is delicious!

adamr

I think, via irony, Neal is showing that he is very hip and he's playing with a very fun, meaningful tension. Read the book, read the blog.

Donna

Why in the world should your entire focus be on your child? I know we live in a culture of "child worship", but come on. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be responsible, it is your responsibility to have health care, food, adequite shelter, clothing, etc for your child, but to give up your self entirely for the child is just plain wrong. It reminds me of those women who do nothing but mommy and when asked what their hobbies are say "oh, i just love being a mom" with a sort of glassy sad look in their eyes.

Why not be a "hip" parent? Why not let your child know that not only do the kids have these fantastic, expansive imaginations, but parents do as well? That parents need a little "me" time and time to be themselves and keep thier core personality (i'm not talking about bar hopping every night of the week or anything like that), that parents are a person too..and deserve their own interests and hobbies outside of their children. If you don't do that, you wind up with a generation of people who expect something out of "my Super Sweet 16".

Donna

Why in the world should your entire focus be on your child? I know we live in a culture of "child worship", but come on. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be responsible, it is your responsibility to have health care, food, adequite shelter, clothing, etc for your child, but to give up your self entirely for the child is just plain wrong. It reminds me of those women who do nothing but mommy and when asked what their hobbies are say "oh, i just love being a mom" with a sort of glassy sad look in their eyes.

Why not be a "hip" parent? Why not let your child know that not only do the kids have these fantastic, expansive imaginations, but parents do as well? That parents need a little "me" time and time to be themselves and keep thier core personality (i'm not talking about bar hopping every night of the week or anything like that), that parents are a person too..and deserve their own interests and hobbies outside of their children. If you don't do that, you wind up with a generation of people who expect something out of "my Super Sweet 16".

Donna

Why in the world should your entire focus be on your child? I know we live in a culture of "child worship", but come on. I'm not saying that you shouldn't be responsible, it is your responsibility to have health care, food, adequite shelter, clothing, etc for your child, but to give up your self entirely for the child is just plain wrong. It reminds me of those women who do nothing but mommy and when asked what their hobbies are say "oh, i just love being a mom" with a sort of glassy sad look in their eyes.

Why not be a "hip" parent? Why not let your child know that not only do the kids have these fantastic, expansive imaginations, but parents do as well? That parents need a little "me" time and time to be themselves and keep thier core personality (i'm not talking about bar hopping every night of the week or anything like that), that parents are a person too..and deserve their own interests and hobbies outside of their children. If you don't do that, you wind up with a generation of people who expect something out of "my Super Sweet 16".

truecraig

This will prove to be a good reading. I do wish it were being done at a bar...

Anon

I am about to be really annoying and comment on a book I haven't read. I'm not sure how this makes me feel. Part of me finds this whole idea kind of immature -- ie, once you have a kid, your focus needs to become the kid, even if it means 'condescending' to take a desk job that delivers unhip things like a steady income and health insurance, instead of working on maintaining some imaginary status quo of hipness. On the other hand, maybe that really is the best kind of parenting - the kind that demonstrates that your place in the world isn't ever fixed, and that you don't stop being who you are just because you've popped out a little one. Kind of a philosophical dilemma that me and the Mr. should examine, eh?