The new one : painfully true stories from a reluctant dad
Mike Birbiglia never wanted to be a father. In fact, there are seven very specific reasons he never wanted a kid, including his aversion to sticky surfaces and his less-than-ideal genes: he's had Lyme Disease, a bladder tumor, diabetes, and dangerous sleepwalking, to name a few. Not to mention the fact that Mike generally doesn't think people (including himself) are really all that great. Then Mike's wife, poet Jen Hope Stein, becomes infected with the contagion 'baby fever' and convinces him she'll do all of the parenting and that their lives don't have to change because of future baby Oona. Yes, he bought that line. In a hilarious memoir about the trials and tribulations of parenting, Mike Birbiglia shares anecdotes all parents can relate to, including laugh-out-loud observations on the lead up to being a parent, the birth of the baby, and the very messy aftermath of bringing this new one home...for a forever stay! Borne out of and based on his Broadway show The New One, and entirely expanded upon with at least 50% new material for this book, new dad Birbiglia will have you crying from laughter and smiling with joy as he falls in love with baby Oona, despite how smelly she is! Mike's candid thoughts on his reluctance about becoming a dad, what he describes as being the 'pudgy milkless vice president of his family,' laced with Stein's poetry combine to form a heartfelt and hilarious book.
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- ISBN: 9781538701515
- Physical Description viii, 242 pages ; 24 cm
- Edition First edition.
- Publisher [Place of publication not identified] : [publisher not identified], 2020.
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Summary
The New One : Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad
With laugh-out-loud funny parenting observations, the New York Times bestselling author and award-winning comedian delivers a book that is perfect for anyone who has ever raised a child, been a child, or refuses to stop acting like one. *A Finalist for the Thurber Prize for American Humor* In 2016 comedian Mike Birbiglia and poet Jennifer Hope Stein took their fourteen-month-old daughter Oona to the Nantucket Film Festival. When the festival director picked them up at the airport she asked Mike if he would perform at the storytelling night. She said, "The theme of the stories is jealousy." Jen quipped, "You're jealous of Oona. You should talk about that." And so Mike began sharing some of his darkest and funniest thoughts about the decision to have a child. Jen and Mike revealed to each other their sides of what had gone down during Jen's pregnancy and that first year with their child. Over the next couple years, these stories evolved into a Broadway show, and the more Mike performed it the more he heard how it resonated--not just with parents but also people who resist all kinds of change. So he pored over his journals, dug deeper, and created this book: The New One: Painfully True Stories From a Reluctant Dad . Along with hilarious and poignant stories he has never shared before, these pages are sprinkled with poetry Jen wrote as she navigated the same rocky shores of new parenthood. So here it is. This book is an experiment--sort of like a family.
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