Self-Promotion Monday
Some nice clips over the weekend:
Author Judith Warner writes kindly about "dad lit" in her TimesSelect column, and an enterprising site deselects the piece so the hoi polloi can enjoy it as well. Read it here.
The Nashua Telegraph publishes a thoughtful and flattering review of Alternadad, ignoring the "hipster parent" angle almost entirely:
"The Pollacks’ story is an outing of the ugly truths about the struggles young middle-class families are facing under the current administration in this country. Like many young middle-class families, the Pollacks struggle to find affordable health insurance and decent preschools to send their son. They find themselves hapless in the search to find safe and affordable neighborhoods to buy a home and raise a child, sending Pollack into a political campaign to clean up the street his family lives on in Austin...To some, this may come across as more bitching by Gen-Xers who don’t want to do for themselves, but the Pollacks’ problems – and here I can speak from experience – are not unique, and they can’t be simply attributed to apathy."
Finally: Stephen King, Jonathan Franzen, Norman Mailer, Joyce Carol Oates, Neal Pollack. Which one of these things is not like the other? Nonetheless, the Times came a callin'.
Comments
just read the warner piece and had a thought about this quote: "Some people, like Pollack, think there’s a point, beyond the age of 19, to trying to look and act “cool”; some do not."
do you suppose that people who were dorks in grade school/high school (i.e. missed out on the prime coolness years) tend to hang on more than others? out of the same insecurities we had when we were 15?
Posted by: smartygirl | May 21, 2007 7:25 AM
Neal, I am so thrilled that you are discussing how devastatingly hard it is for families these days to make ends meet. Which is to say that even if you aren't aiming specifically for the topic of micro-economic analysis in your work, there is a large segment of your readership that really understands and appreciates your discussions of this area of your life. My husband is a PhD with a nice teaching job, and we can't even begin to cover the bills with his salary alone. I hear women talk about the choice to work or to stay home, and I can't begin to figure out who these women are. Certainly they aren't the supposedly middle class people I know - none of them has a choice about whether or not she will bring home a paycheck.
The middle class is being squeezed!
Posted by: yanalita | May 22, 2007 8:57 PM
Oh wise one-thank god you are out there writing! I have a 5 month old girl who I did not want to know who Barney was. I knew there had to be others out there like me. When I do find the time to read I didn't want to read about baby stuff. I read to escape...why would I just involve myself in reading material about the very thing I wanted to escape for 15 minutes before I have to fold laundry. I felt a little guilty about that, you have to learn about raising a kid somehow right? But alternadad makes me feel as if I am being entertained and still reading about child rearing...child rearing that sounds a little icky. Again, thanks for the comaraderie and keep that kid rocking!
Posted by: blair | May 24, 2007 2:58 PM