Yes, You're Pregnant, but What About Me?

by Kevin Nealon

Overview

A massive international celebrity, at fifty-three Kevin Nealon thought he had it all. But like every other overindulged superstar, the perpetually insatiable Nealon wanted more: a little addition that drooled, burped, and pooped (no, not a Pomeranian).

In Yes, You're Pregnant, but What About Me? Nealon courageously reveals the truth about confronting first-time dadhood at an age when most fathers are packing their kids off to college. In hilariously vivid detail, he carries the reader through all the emotional stages of pregnancy—discomfort, denial, hunger, exhaustion, self-consciousness, hungrier, confusion, crankiness, not-quite-as-hungry-but-still-craving-something, sweatiness, covered in cookie crumbs—while addressing the major worries that fathers everywhere have been dealing with for centuries: Can I duct-tape a crib together? How often can I reuse a disposable diaper? What if the baby looks like me and not my wife?

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780061215216
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	05/05/2009
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Kevin Nealon was one of the longest-running cast members in the history of Saturday Night Live, and he stars in the Showtime original series Weeds. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and their son, Gable.

Editorial Reviews

Comedian and actor Nealon (best known for his characters on Saturday Night Live and his role on Weeds) makes his print debut with comedic content so potent readers will surely demand future books. Nealon is a first-time father with his second wife, actress Susan Yeagley, and detailing the male point of view on pregnancy, he writes about the events that led to the birth of their son in 2007. The 53-year-old Nealon considers becoming a father while also anticipating death: "It wasn't over for me yet, but I felt I was 'circling the drain'." However, at age 34, Susan was still "pregnantable," as he puts it. Thus the merry parental dance began. Beneath the jokes, Nealon swims in poignant undercurrents, discussing his relationship with Susan, recalling his childhood and reflecting on life in general. Digressions lead to such jests as: "Why do some people get their stomach stapled? What if you wanted to just lose a little weight? Could you paperclip your stomach?" Fellow humorists Benchley and Thurber would probably nod in admiration at Nealon's ability to insert a bon mot or clever phrase into almost every paragraph of this very funny navigation from pregnancy to parenthood. (May)

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Publishers Weekly

Veteran comedian and actor finds humor and pathos in parenthood-just like everybody else. Former Saturday Night Live player and current Weeds star Nealon and wife Susan began thinking about having a kid when he was 52-not, some might say, the best age to embark upon the road to fatherhood. But embark the happy couple did, and along the way they encountered fertility doctors, meddling friends and family, Kegel classes . . . you know, the usual stuff that contemporary parents-to-be have to deal with. The entire process forced Nealon to reconsider his previous life and figure out if he would be a good father. Fortunately for readers of his debut memoir, he's relatively funny about the whole thing. Over the last few years, there has been a spate of books from new and/or reluctant parents detailing how having a baby alters and/or improves one's life: Neal Pollack's Alternadad: The True Story of One Family's Struggle to Raise a Cool Kid in America (2007); Jim Lindberg's Punk Rock Dad: No Rules, Just Real Life (2007); and Rebecca Woolf's Rockabye: From Wild to Child (2008). Each of these works has its merits, as does Nealon's, but since every new parent has to deal with delivery-room meltdowns, dirty diapers, sleep deprivation and, of course, a complete life overhaul, the question arises: How many of these books do we need? Nealon is a sharp observer and often very funny; for instance, among the baby names put up for discussion were Firecracker, Florida Coastal Waterway, Prayin' Wyle and Conan Meconium. However, he's picked a subject that has been recently mined for all it's worth, so there's a good chance that his periodically charming, periodically draggy meditation-on-fatherhood/autobiographywill get lost in the baby-book shuffle. A cute little missive about the joys of parenthood that's slightly cuter than most of the other recent cute little missives about the joys of parenthood.

Kirkus Reviews