Househusband - Softcover

Hudler, Ad

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0345470621 ISBN 13: 9780345470621

Publisher: Ballantine Books, 2004

Synopsis

When his wife, Jo, is offered her dream job, Lincoln Menner leaves his thriving landscape business in Los Angeles and moves to Rochester, New York. This will be his chance to start over, spend a little time with their three-year-old daughter, and finally do things right at home.

But Linc had no idea what it really meant to be a househusband: to stay home every day, folding laundry, cleaning soap scum, and teaching his little girl to use the potty. To be ignored at parties by his wife’s colleagues who see him as just a homemaker. Though he soon has the house humming, Linc misses the outside world. Most of all he misses Jo, who works too late and barely notices the fabulous dinners he slaves over. Drastic action must be taken to make his efficiently run house truly a home, sweet home. And Linc knows he is just the man for the job!

About this title

Review

The premise of Ad Hudler's first novel, Househusband, is as simple as the book's title: narrator Linc Menner tells us all about adjusting to life as the primary caregiver to his 3-year-old daughter Violet. The pleasures the book yields are, however, surprisingly complex. There's a weird thrill in reading the trials of domesticity described by, well, a man. In the opening comic set piece, Linc prepares for a dinner party he's throwing for his wife Jo's boss. "Jo had said the house was already clean, that it wouldn't take much to get it ready for guests, but she doesn't understand these things. It wasn't dinner party clean." Hudler has a real knack for observing the inner workings of what is traditionally considered woman's work--he's not shy about devoting page space to dusting and nutrition and plant care. He also gets off some good, quiet social commentary: "There's a reason women read more than men. They get stuck in undesirable locales and situations more often--soccer fields, hospital rooms, bedsides--and a book helps pass the time." In the end, Hudler's book amounts to both a celebration of the art of homemaking and a lovely, funny way to pass the time. --Claire Dederer

From the Back Cover

“You’ll think it’s a man’s world until you read Househusband, Ad Hudler’s hilarious debut. It will make you laugh, cry, and eat–move over Martha Stewart: wait until you taste his tortellini!”
–ADRIANA TRIGIANI
Author of Big Stone Gap

“I’ve always believed that everyone, man or woman, needs a wife. Apparently, so does Ad Hudler. He has written a very funny book on a serious subject–
contemporary gender roles. And he can bake a cherry pie. Wotta man!”
–SARA MOULTON
Host of Cooking Live and executive chef for Gourmet magazine

“Househusband is hilarious, smart, surprising, and full of mouth-watering descriptions of gourmet meals concocted on the fly (recipes included). But the best thing about Ad Hudler’s ingenious novel is its fresh perspective on humanity’s oldest conundrum: [the] relations between the sexes.”
–JENNY MCPHEE
Author of The Center of Things
From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0345470621
• ISBN 13: 9780345470621
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304