Pacify Me

To my surprise, I enjoyed Chris Mancini’s “Pacify Me: A Handbook for the Freaked-Out New Dad.”  I blame the publisher, and not my own snobbishness, for my low expectations.  (The cover of the book depicts a six-pack of beer with a baby bottle substituted for a beer bottle and a pacifier draped on one of the longnecks, so naturally I was expecting a 200-page diatribe on why wives are overbearing and lamenting the cancellation of poker night.)  In fact, there are some legitimately funny, if not dramatic, parts of this book.  I read the anti-Babies ‘R’ Us rant out loud to my wife, and it had us both rolling.  (He begins subtly enough: “Babies ‘R’ Us is a horrible, horrible store.”)  Throughout Pacify Me, there are consistent and fairly accurate depictions of dad’s flat out terror, but it’s addressed in a comforting way.  “Look,” Mancini writes, “you should be freaked out about having a child . . . I’m more concerned about the guys who aren’t freaked out about having a child. . . That’s the same guy who is usually described later on in a police report as always being ’such a nice, quiet boy.’”  For those dads who want a combination of advice and humor, without too much of an intellectual investment, this is a good choice.
- Etan Mark 

Pacify Me: A Handbook for the Freaked Out New Dad. By Chris Mancini. Simon Spotlight Entertainment.