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    Alternadad
    Alternadad
    Alternadad
    Audiobook9 hours

    Alternadad

    Written by Neal Pollack

    Narrated by Neal Pollack

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In Alternadad, Neal Pollack offers a wonderfully candid account of his and his wife's attempt to bring up their son while still having fun and preserving their attachment to youth culture. For Pollack, this means bringing the boy to music festivals and teaching him about the history of rock and roll, and nothing brings joy to his heart like hearing his son say he wants to listen to the Ramones. It means having posters of Johnny Cash and not of Wilco, or learning that Baby Bear is a terrible show while Sesame Street rocks. It means teaching your son to be irreverent without being a bad kid. In the end, Alternadad is about learning to be a responsible parent who can also teach his son how to mosh. It also just might become the parenting bible for a new generation of parents trying to raise their kids in an increasingly homogenized and uptight culture.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJun 6, 2008
    ISBN9781436143813
    Alternadad
    Author

    Neal Pollack

    Neal Pollack is the author of the bestselling memoir Alternadad and several books of satirical fiction, including The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and the rock novel Never Mind the Pollacks. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

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    Reviews for Alternadad

    3.5/5

    57 ratings4 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Writer Neal Pollack chronicles the conception, birth and first couple years of his son Elijah’s existence. Pollack is not unlikeable (or unreadable), and you can’t blame him for trying to turn two years of child-raising into literature, but just as you endure rather than enjoy listening to your neighbor or coworker go on about the achievements of their child, things get tedious in a hurry. Put your money towards getting that Black Flag tattoo lasered off instead or better yet, buy your own baby a new pair of shoes.
    • 4/5
      This is a memoir by a hip journalist who marries and becomes a father. His methods for staying hip unfortunately mostly involve buying houses in sketchy neighborhoods, continuing to smoke dope, and leaving his wife and baby for a month to tour with a lousy rock band. A very funny and entertaining book with great descriptions of what parenthood is really like. Not so great in terms of life advice.
    • 3/5
      Neal Pollack strikes me as selfish. As much as I want to like him, and as much as I have in common with him, I can't get over how fundamentally selfish it is of him to decide to take his (in his words) crappy rock band on a month-long road trip, leaving his wife at home with his infant son. After reading about that, I just couldn't get behind anything he did. I liked his wife, though.
    • 4/5
      When I saw the Pete Bagge cover, I had to read this book. But then I read about Neal Pollack, and I thought "meh." But it was much better than I expected it to be. Pollack is a good writer, and it was engrossing to read about the Pollack's struggles with becoming parents. Most interesting was the struggle between their perceptions of what kind of person is a parent and their own identities. It seems like many of our generation struggle with this very issue. As an expecting parent who foams at the mouth in annoyance when I see license plates that say "Jays mom" or "socr fam", I really enjoyed getting another point of view on it.