| « Statistician Nate Silver Speaks at Spertus Institute | Mark your Calendars: Summer Literary Events » |
Author Mon May 20 2013
Parenthood is Scary
“I won’t lie to you. Before your kid is born, you aren’t expecting it to be pretty. You know the birth will be a little messy. But it’s fairly shocking when the doctor holds up your baby and it looks like a prop from one of those horror flicks that gets called a ‘cult’ flick because 42 fat dipshits on the internet like it a lot. The baby was covered in blood, head to toe, screaming. Screaming, I assume, for a shower.”
According to his first blog, Father Knows Shit, this is how, one day in 2006, Drew Magary became a father. And then proceeded to document said fatherhood in accounts both heartfelt and unflinchingly sassy*.
Though that blog has since been put on permanent hiatus, Magary’s parental musings took no such break. Rather—somewhere amidst two other books and extensive work as a writer for GQ and Deadspin—they’ve accumulated and make up his latest work, Someone Could Get Hurt: A Memoir of Twenty-First-Century Parenthood.
When it comes to honest accounts of parenthood, Magary is fearless. He is the parent brave enough to admit that, yes, being a father is hard. Yes, your baby’s crying will be just as annoying as every other baby’s crying. Yes, the pressure put on parents is enormous, and spanking is pretty weird for everyone involved. It is that very candor that allows Magary’s work to be both eye-opening and entertaining.
This Thursday, May 23, at 7 pm the father himself will be stopping into the Book Cellar (4736-38 N. Lincoln Ave.) to share some pearls of parental wisdom from his new book. Whether you are a parent, a babysitter, or have just seen a baby before in passing, Magary’s work is brimming with wit, and definitely worth a listen.
*”Sassy”, you may think, is a flippant or sarcastic choice here. But read any one of Magary’s GQ articles and you’ll find it’s the only word astute in assessing his deft mockery talents. I revere his sass. He is a SassMaster.
Mike / May 21, 2013 2:04 PM
Thanks for writing about this, can't wait to see Magary. He's one of my favorite writers, and I like how he uses caps lock TO EMPHASIZE A POINT.