My Dad Is A Freak

Not since Bill Cosby's Fatherhood has such an original, brilliant voice captured the chaos, the ecstasy, and the Zeitgeist of the modern dad. A mad mash-up of David Sedaris, P.J. O'Rourke, Dave Barry, and Hunter S. Thompson, Mr. Bell selflessly cracks open his head like a walnut and shines a startling light onto the thinking matter of an older, first-time dad. The silly fears, the poignant observations, and the constant ebb and flow of his manhood make for an irreverent and hilarious first-person examination of all things holy and unholy in the parenthood universe.

Bell is at once acutely hyper-vigilant and maddeningly oblivious to the obligations and rituals that are required of him in his new capacity as husband, role model, playmate, and Bakugan repairman. Although he has had his whole life to prepare for this moment, he didn't. Luckily, the rest of us get front row seats as he starts and stops, stumbles and staggers, and eventually succeeds in reconciling (almost) everything he thought he knew as a single man with the strange new world of dad-hood.

This is a memoir detailing one man's serendipitous journey from bachelorhood to parenthood. After his latest girlfriend becomes his wife, and his wife becomes pregnant, Bell finds himself a first time father at nearly 50 years old. Over the years, he has shown only a passing interest in his nieces and nephews and has never touched someone else's poo. Now, with an eight month-old baby and two toddlers, he wracks his brain for any useful cross-over skills accumulated from a half-century of single life.

"MY DAD IS A FREAK" is the conclusion that each of his children will inevitably arrive at, in their own good time, despite his best efforts.