The New One
Painfully True Stories from a Reluctant Dad
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4.7 • 46 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
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.
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Comedian Birbiglia (Sleepwalk with Me) reflects on fatherhood in this fast-paced memoir, which also features his wife Stein's brief, intimate poems. In 2016, 40-year-old Birbiglia was happily married and happily childless: "I've lost a lot of great friends to kids," he notes. Then, Stein (Little Astronaut) tells him that she wanted to abandon their vow of childlessness; desperate to change her mind, he cites his dangerous sleepwalking disorder, high cholesterol, and a teenage bout with cancer as proof he's "a walking pre-existing condition," but his wife won him over. Stein develops complications during her pregnancy (she writes of her unborn daughter, "my body may fail you,/ (sorry)"), while the expectant father engages in "sympathy eating." ("I'm so sorry you're having cramps are you gonna finish those fries?" writes Birbiglia). In the months after daughter Oona's birth, Birbiglia grows fearful that he may never connect with his "little monkey," yet soon enough he wins small victories, like receiving "record-high approval ratings" from Oona for his rendition of "Ave Maria." The turning point comes when he plays hide and seek with her in a furniture showroom, and she begins "laughing so hard that I start laughing in a new way... We're laughing as one." Birbiglia's witty take on new parenthood will resonate especially with those who've been there.
