In 1986, on the first day of his 40th year, the author starts writing a "harmless memoir of my careless youth." He mimics Jack Kerouac and starts typing on butcher paper. What "flows" is a book full of boyhood memories certainly, but also a book of ideas in progress (about baseball, about fate, about writing itself) written with stylistic idiosyncrasies that make the book different without being weird. Things change abruptly for the author when "current events" intrude and his wife's troubled pregnancy (which he decides to incorporate into his writing of the past) makes him look at his own misgivings and fears. This intertwining of remembering the past while facing up to things as they happen gives the book a powerful denouement no reader is likely to forget.

When I found out my wife, Christine, was pregnant, I had no idea what I was thinking or feeling, and no clue what I should be thinking or feeling. Christine had daily heart-to-hearts with her girlfriends and a stack of parenting books by her bed. I had lots of questions with no answers. So I started writing. It was either that, or try to ignore the whole thing -- a choice that became increasingly difficult as Christine's belly became increasingly swollen.Rookie Dad is the story of a young husband and father learning how to pay attention to his family's changing size and shape. It's a story filled with hard questions, with laughter and tears, and with the unexpected joy of first-time fatherhood. It's my story -- the story of how I became a dad.