Housebroken: Confessions of a Stay-at-Home Dad FROM THE PUBLISHER
Take David Eddie. Once, he was a freewheeling comic novelist, whose work was hailed as "entertaining...infectious enjoyment" (The New York Times). The guy who wrote the book on Generation X called him "loads of fun" (Douglas Coupland). Then, Mr. Eddie met Ms. Right -- a woman with brains, beauty, and a full-time career -- who delivered an ultimatum on her thirtieth birthday: "Fertilize my eggs, or pack your bags." Housebroken is the true story of one man's painfully funny evolution from single cad to stay-at-home dad -- from man-about-town to man-of-the-house. In his own unflinching words, Eddie describes how a bachelor who never kept anything in the fridge but condiments and beer actually learns to cook for the whole family. He shows how a man who let ashtrays flow over and dishes stack up for months can miraculously clean the house. In charge of a child, he comes up with logical reasons why every parent should rope-a-dope the kid. And within a three-block radius of his house, he somehow manages to find adventure. This is the brave firsthand account of a down-and-dirty dad, Renaissance husband, reluctant housekeeper, and still all-around-regular guy.
FROM THE CRITICS
Publishers Weekly
Novelist and journalist Eddie (Chump Change) is living a dissolute bachelorhood of bohemian squalor and interchangeable "sexually forthright, non-rocket-scientific young women" when he finds the love of his life in the form of a family-minded woman. He was wary of the crimp domesticity might put in his literary aspirations, but when son Nicholas comes along, the avowedly unemployable writer decides that he was "born to be a househusband." He may stay home while his wife goes to work, but he's not entirely housebroken: he uses the corner bar and neighborhood lingerie shop as day-care centers, longs to join the glitterati, muses about divorce on a hellish family vacation, exists for long periods in a haze of boredom and sleep-deprivation and wears the indelible social stigma of the stay-at-home dad. But he derives an unsuspected degree of fulfillment in a house well-kept, a meal well-cooked and a child well-cared for, and finds that family life gives him "more sustained happiness than I ever expected to enjoy on this earth." These superbly crafted explorations of fatherhood are full of wry humor, keen observations, and hilarious, off-kilter riffs on such topics as the Teletubbies, the seduction techniques of the single man and the scientific literature of parenting. This indispensable guide to fatherhood in the post-feminist age proves that writing and child-care do indeed mix. (May) Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING
"A refreshing, utterly hilarious and often moving portrait of parenting and masculinity at the dawn of a new millennium."
Quill & Quire
"Etiquette for married men -- a life skills guide for guys who would never deliberately buy one. Funny and never preachy."
Vancouver Sun
"[A] truly delightful literary gem...witty and amusing."
Kitchener-Waterloo Record
— publisher
Home
