Dan Gets a Minivan

March 26, 2012
The latest in a slew of books on fatherhood, Zevin offers the latest installment of his ongoing memoirs about having to be an adult (The Day I Turned Uncool: Confessions of a Reluctant Grown-Up). In a book that lacks the humor of his previous books, Zevin seems unaware of how unbelievably smug he sounds as he recounts the travails of moving his wife and two children from a neighborhood of “impossibly cool Brooklyn families” to one of suburban bliss: “big yard, two-car garage, and a neighborhood playground.” This leads him to fill his memoir with vaguely updated observations on topics that were old when they first described life in 1950s suburbia: “Here’s what date night is... the goal is to stay awake in each other’s presence.” But he sometimes does have a way of making trivial and mundane insights into a deep spiritual experience that demands to be shared with others. In one chapter, Zevin finds himself berating an “Aloof Hipster Dad” to accept that the hip attitude doesn’t hide that “ou’re just in over your head like the rest of us.”

Starred review from September 24, 2012
Dan Zevin, whose humorous essays trace his evolution from urban hipster to suburban dad and husband and chronicle the mini-dramas of daily domestic life, delivers engaging narration in this audio edition. Among the highlights of Zevin’s performance is his irreverent and empathic rendition of his own colorful parents—long divorced from each other, but both still actively involved in the lives of their children and grandchildren. The narrator also effectively captures the disdainful tones of urbanites, as friends pronounce the word “suburb” with a hard-edged emphasis on the first syllable—as in “subpar” or “subtract.” Especially entertaining is Zevin’s performance of a scene in which his longtime Brooklyn neighbor rails against the domestic conformity of “adult swim” sessions at a suburban pool. The personal touches Zevin brings to his narration help keep the listening fresh even when the audiobook’s themes are rather familiar. A Scribner hardcover.