Home Game: An Accidental Guide to Fatherhood
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- ISBN13: 9780393338096
- Condition: New
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Product Description
The New York Times bestseller: “Hilarious. No mushy tribute to the joys of fatherhood, Lewis’ book addresses the excellent, the terrible, and the merely baffling about having kids.”—Boston Globe When Michael Lewis became a father, he chose to keep a written record of what really happened immediately after the birth of each of his three children. This book is that record. But it is also something else: maybe the most amusing, most unsparing account of ordinary daily household life ever recorded, from the point of view of the man inside. The remarkable thing about this tale isn’t that Lewis is so unusual. It’s that he is so predictable. The only marvel is that his wife has allowed him to publish it.
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I used to see this huge-boned, honest-haired fella walking a ridiculous fluffy dog on my block. He stood out, because unlike most Berkeley geldings, he was obviously embarrassed to be walking this humiliatingly unmanly dog. Most Berkeley males are “secure enough in their masculinity” (since they were never afflicted with any) to not look so embarrassed doing such a thing, so he really made an impression. When a man is questioned to do a humiliating task like this, if he acquiesces regularly enough, he starts looking like one of them prisoners of the Taliban you see in the news. The prisoner has known freedom but his fortunes have taken a turn for the worse, his spirit is broken and he knows he is ultimately doomed to a grisly and ignominious end. After reading this book, I’m pretty sure the soul sick guy with the dumb dog was Michael Lewis. This book is a chronicle of his humiliation.
The sad thing about it, is Michael Lewis is intelligent enough to realize, on some level, something terrible is going on. He speculates that we may be in some uncomfortable middle-place between traditional male roles and a glorious future way of fatherhood. He is incorrect. He has let himself become victim of one of the worst examples of cultural decay on Planet. He has acceded to the irrational demands of a woman enslaved to her whims, and persons of the febrile Berzerkeley nincompoops around her. Had Lewis married a woman with more sensible beliefs; perhaps a Mormon or a Kentucky snake-handler, he would not have had any material for a book like this. I’m sure the thought that being married to some bumpkin from cow country might be a better plot than Tabitha Soren will cause smug chuckling over chardonnay among the enlightened elders of Berkeley. They will probably guffaw something abstractedly eugenic about the very thought of the children of Michael Lewis being raised by a woman of a type they consider lower than savages with bones in their noses. The fact of the matter is, the Mormon will have less loopy beliefs about how the world works, a similar capacity for rational thought, and she is a lot less likely to be an emasculating witch. While the latter point has obvious implications for Lewis’ quality of life, it has larger implications in how his children grow up. His children are being taught that he is not a man worthy of respect. Since daddy is nothing but a clownish figure of fun in their minds, they are very likely to grow up into horrible people. What is worse? Absent father, or father absent the respect traditionally accorded to pater familias? Their trajectory in life can be predicted with near ballistic precision, and it’s not any place any sane parents would want their children to be. Children need structure and discipline in their lives. This is what fathers are for. Absent structured lives and respect for their father, they will take their revenge on their parents and the world around them. Everyone knows this: Aristotle wrote about it 2400 years ago at the dawn of Western Civilization. Everyone knows this, it seems, but legendary people who live in Berkeley.
Lewis is a fantastic writer, and a keen observer, hence my one star above par. I can only hope that additional men treat his book as a cautionary tale rather than some kind of map of the future of fatherhood. Perhaps as he suggests, this memoir has value as a a document of the insanity of the upper middle class of our era; something like a 21st century Satyricon involving family tree life. I wish him and his family tree well, and hope that it all works out for the best, if only because I don’t need his kids stealing my car or torturing my pets in a few years. If I could be so bold as to offer some advice to Mr. Lewis: buy some cigars, a pit bull (an unfortunate manufacturing accident can be arranged for the fluffy dog), lay in a supply of testosterone patches and some really scary looking guns, and go hang around with some manly men. Maybe the East Bay Rats MC or the Richmond Rod and Gun Club, or go find some of the options traders still moping around the Pacific Stock Exchange. Mrs. Lewis/Soren/HerGoovyness will profess to despise it at first, but secretly, her respect for you will grow, as she will know that her spouse, rather than being a bumbling, frilled Berkeley lily like all the rest, is really a man.
Reader’s Rating: 2 / 5
If you’ve read the introduction, you’ve read the best part. Don’t even bother with the rest of the reflections of an immature, lost “father”.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
I’ve read a few of Michael’s books and have loved them. But, I was completely disgusted by this book. Michael clearly demonstrates how far removed he is with reality and parenting in the modern day.
As a parent of two small girls, I struggled with many of the issues that he faced but accept it (sometimes with a smile, sometimes with a grimace) as the responsibility of parenthood.
His whines, sense of entitlement, observations, and comparisons to the past are so out of line with today’s world.
DO NOT READ.
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5
HOME GAME:An Accidential Guide
To Fatherhood
Michael Lewis
W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
500 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10110
ISBN: 978-0-393-06901-3
$23.95 – Hardback
190 pages
HOME GAME: An Accidential Guide to Fatherhood by Michael Lewis is an honest account of one father’s experience with raising his children. While most fathers’ would “reflect” what Lewis is adage, most of them would mute the actual words.
This work is written in three parts, each part dedicated to one of Lewis’s children. His account of the birthing process is hilarious. He states, “A woman in labor needs to judge, but much evidence she has to the contrary, that the man in waiting beside her bed is directing every ounce of his concern toward her. He learns to concealment trips to the john as grape juice-fetching missions, When he is hungry he waits until his wife dozes off, then nips furtively down to the hospital vending machine for his supper of Ring Dings and Nacho Cheese Doritos.” He continues to say that no one really cares how Dad is doing, nor, do they care about his fatigue, his worries, his tedium, his disappointment at the contents of the hospital vending machine – these are better unmentioned. Above all, he must know that if his mask of perfect selflessness slips for even a moment he will be nabbed.
His account of his daughter’s encounter with older boys who try to ruin her and her sister’s day at the pool is so amusing that I had to place the book down until I could get control of my laughter.
What Lewis really says is what we all have felt at some period in parenting our children. But, we are not courageous enough to place our feelings in print. So, I am awed by Michael Lewis’s ability to just place it all out there for his readers.
Any new parent should read this book, male or female. It will help you to realize that there is no incorrect way to parent, just do your best and the children usually become reasonable people.
This would make a excellent gift for new parents, anyone wanting to read a light-hearted family tree book or a man who has been questioned by his wife to have a vasectomy. Don’t question, just read the book.
Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
I don’t see where all the positive outpouring is coming from for this book. I just got done reading it and thought it lacked substance. I didn’t gain anything from its contents. I felt as though the leader was writing this book, just to write a book. It really didn’t have a purpose. And for what he had to say…I say who cares???
Reader’s Rating: 1 / 5