Neal Pollack is interviewed over at Radar Magazine about his new book, Alternadad, which I’m hoping to read and review for someone at some point. I thought this particular Q&A was relevant to what we’re doing here.
Radar: At one point the book was going to be titled Daddy Was a Sinner, right?
Pollack: Yeah, and in the end, I’m not really a sinner. I mean, I smoke weed and jerk off to Internet porn. I guess in some circles that would make me a sinner, but in most circles that would just make me a man.
Also, I want my daughter to be as cute as his son.
Also, I recommend reading this essay of his, which is an excerpt from the book. In it, he writes about the process he and his wife went through agonizing over whether or not to circumcise his son. He’s Jewish, and she’s not — more to the point, though, his parents are Jewish, and they brought the guilt hammer down on him hard. This is from the phone call with his mom when he mentioned that they’re thinking about not circumcising:
"Yeah. Listen, Mom, I wanted to talk to you about something."
"Of course, honey."
"Regina and I were thinking about not circumcising Elijah…"
It’s hard to describe exactly what my mother’s voice did at that moment, but "convulsed" is probably the closest word I can find.
"No, oh, no no no Neal. Don’t say that to me. We’re prepared to take anything. But you have to circumcise him."
Prepared to take anything, I thought. What did that mean?
"Regina did this research. And…"
"I don’t care about Regina’s research. She’s not Jewish."
"But we were thinking…"
My mother began to openly weep on the phone.
"Oh my God, Neal! I can’t believe you’re doing this to me! You have to circumcise! You have to!"
"My wife…"
"Your wife is immaterial here. You can’t betray six thousand years of Jewish tradition."
It only gets worse from there, but it’s a good essay. Pollack pretty much fails in his husbandly duties — to stand up for his wife, and his son, in defiance of his parents’ (i.e. his mother’s) wishes — but he makes no excuses for himself, which is the manliest thing you can do once you’ve failed the initial test of manliness.
I’m probably on thin ice here, in terms of essentializing, but I do think that husbands tend to be torn between their mothers and their wives, in the way Pollack was, more than wives are torn between their husbands and their parents. Yes? Any thoughts from the peanut gallery?
