Dan Gets a Minivan: Life at the Intersection of Dude and Dad
About
Winner of the Thurber Prize for American Humor
The least hip citizen of Brooklyn, Dan Zevin has a working wife, two small children, a mother who visits each week to “help,” and an obese Labrador mutt who prefers to be driven rather than walked. How he got to this point is a bit of a blur. There was a wedding, and then there was a puppy. A home was purchased in New England. A wife was promoted and transferred to New York. A town house. A new baby boy. A new baby girl. A stay-at-home dad was born. A prescription for Xanax was filled. Gray hairs appeared; gray hairs fell out. Six years passed in six seconds. And then came the minivan.
Dan Zevin, master of “Seinfeld-ian nothingness” (Time), is trying his best to make the transition from couplehood to familyhood. Acclimating to the adult-oriented lifestyle has never been his strong suit, and this slice-of-midlife story chronicles the whole hilarious journey—from instituting date night to joining Costco; from touring Disneyland to recovering from knee surgery; from losing ambition to gaining perspective. Where it’s all heading is anyone’s guess, but, for Dan, suburbia’s calling—and his minivan has GPS.
NPR Interview
Praise
A Barnes & Noble top five humor pick
“This is the funniest book about parenting I’ve read in a long, long time. Dan Zevin is a major talent. I want to kill him.” —Dave Barry
“Dan Zevin yanks the car seats and the sippy cups out of that minivan and sticks a blow Hemi dragster engine back there—I mean in his prose style. In his lifestyle it’s, um . . . a different matter.” —P.J. O’Rourke
“With riffs on everything from date nights with his wife (“The goal is to stay awake”) to shopping at Costco with his father (“It’s hard to feel like you’re a man when you’re in your 40s and your dad is still buying you paper towels”), Zevin is one hilarious house-husband—like Seinfeld for the stay-at-home-dad set. Raise a sippy cup and cheer him on!” —People Magazine
“At one point he takes up guitar so he can be as cool as the kid-rocker Dan Zanes. “If it weren’t for the police presence” at his concerts, Mr. Zevin writes, “they’d be rushing the stage and throwing their nursing bras up at him.” Mr. Zevin clearly deserves projectile undergarments too.” —The New York Times
“It’s a book about a regular guy taking his first tentative, sometimes scary steps toward being a fully formed adult, and it is always funny and sometimes laugh-out-loud hilarious…. Highly recommended to fans of Barry, Roy Blount, and Bill Geist.” —Booklist
“With nods to Woody Allen and Larry David, Zevin has forged a persona of half-dorky (yet all-devoted) Jewish dad that’s endearing.” —Forward