Dan Gets a Minivan - by Dan Zevin (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A coming-of-middle-age tale told with warmth and wit that's "like Seinfeld for the stay-at-home-dad set. Raise a sippy cup and cheer him on" (People).

A coming-of-middle-age tale told with warmth and wit, Dan Gets a Minivan provides the one thing every parent really needs: comic relief. Whether you're a dude, a dad, or someone who's married to either, fasten your seat belt and prepare to crack up.

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 full-time 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.

Review Quotes

"Dave Barry has made a career of writing about Dave Barry. P.J. O'Rourke writes about P.J. O'Rourke. And David Sedaris writes about David Sedaris and the strange Sedaris clan into which he was born. You could throw Zevin in with any of them and he would hold his own. He might even float to the top."

"Zevin is a poster boy for egalitarian -- even feminist -- fatherhood. But at the same time, he presents himself as a loving goof-off: a guy who's picked the most enjoyable option -- parenting -- over working a high-powered, full-time job...With nods to Woody Allen and Larry David, Zevin has forged a persona of half-dorky (yet all-devoted) Jewish dad that's endearing."

"Zevin is one hilarious house-husband--like Seinfeld for the stay-at-home-dad set. Raise a sippy cup and cheer him on."

"Zevin, in the grand tradition of humorists, has made the most of his failures...What elevates his work above mere irreverence is the quality of insight he brings to relatively familiar terrain."

""Zevin is one hilarious house-husband--like Seinfeld for the stay-at-home-dad set. Raise a sippy cup and cheer him on."--People"""

"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

"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"

"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