My interview with Neal Pollack about Alternadad at Mediabistro

I interviewed Alternadad author Neal Pollack for Mediabistro's Book Keeping section. Here's my intro (you have to be a member of Avantguild, MB's membership program, to read the whole thing, sorry):

With his first memoir, Alternadad (Pantheon, January 2007), hipster author Neal Pollack, best known for works like and The Neal Pollack Anthology of American Literature and Nevermind the Pollacks, chronicles his shift to settling down and becoming a dad without completing losing his identity. He also covers his post-baby pot use, concert-going, culinary adventures, vacations and travel. Money plays a major role in the book, from the stress of supporting three people on a writer's irregular salary to finding affordable schooling for his son, Elijah.

Pollack takes readers through the early stages of his courtship with his artist girlfriend, and later wife, Regina, their decision to have a child, and the various surprises in store for them once they take the plunge. From his son's hospital visits, ongoing musical education and nutritional molding (McDonald's, he's told, means "yucky food") to Pollack's attempts to clean up his Austin, Texas, neighborhood, find a new, affordable, and safe place to live (ultimately settling in Los Angeles), and navigating the ups and downs of new parenthood, Alternadad provides glimpses of Pollack's own childhood as well as the many things he's had to learn -- about his son and himself -- since becoming an Alternadad. Here he debunks the myth that just because you write for Vanity Fair, you've got it made, advises authors on how to cut corners on their book tours, and gives an update on the status of what could be Alternadad: The Movie.