| Title | : | Lads: A Memoir |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0812970292 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780812970296 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 288 |
| Publication | : | First published September 7, 2004 |
When Dave Itzkoff graduated from Princeton in 1998–the first member of his family to earn a college degree–he expected to be rewarded with a career, and a life, that mattered. Instead, he ended up convinced that he was selling the entire institution of manhood down the river.
After a series of personal and professional experiences stripped him of any lingering sense of entitlement, Itzkoff found himself working as an editor at Maxim, the pugnacious frontrunner in a new breed of men’s periodicals dubbed "lad magazines." There, he was initiated into a culture of heavily retouched girlie pictorials, dirty jokes, disingenuous sex advice, and shopping guides for expensive electronic gadgetry. And as Maxim continued its inexorable rise to become the most successful men’s magazine in modern publishing history, Itzkoff was left wondering what his work–and his life–really meant.
Lads is the hilarious, heartbreaking story of Dave Itzkoff's efforts to define himself as a man while working at a magazine that was purveying a vision of young manhood–a state of perpetual adolescence–that was seductive to all but viable for none. Lads takes us deep inside one young man’s struggle with identity, responsibility, and sexuality, in an unsparingly candid account of how men really relate to one another, as fathers and sons, as employers and employees, as colleagues and friends.
Lads is trenchant. Lads is perceptive. Lads is alarmingly funny. This is an unforgettable debut from a young writer of astounding talent.
From the Hardcover edition.
Lads: A Memoir Reviews
-
What it is to figure out adulthood, and in particular, manhood is the subject of Lads. At times tragic, at times searing and honest, at times irreverent and laugh-out-loud funny, Lads chronicles its author's (Dave Itzkoff) time working as an editor's assistant for men's magazines as he navigates the confusing post-baccalaureate terrain after graduating from Princeton. Those who attended Princeton as undergrads will understand the academic context at the start of his hero's journey with all of its attendant expectations for a rosy career path, and his dismay when he realizes he simply doesn't know how the real (working) world works, nor for that matter how the world of relationships works either, and the importance of figuring both out. Not James Joyce's Ulysses, for sure, and not a book I would have picked up at first glance, it is one that surprised me with its depth and poignancy, its honesty and authenticity. Well played, Dave, well played.
-
Tiresome memoir of not particularly much that makes stabs at recognizing the author's own repulsiveness as a human being, but cannot escape the limits of his own behavior. Grasping, judgmental misogynist who seems to have no interest in interacting with women other than as quasi-loathed masturbatory objects. *Every single female character* with the exception of the author's mother and sister and one advertising professional he addresses as a "stupid cunt" is introduced with a description of her breasts. I wish I were exaggerating. Awkward, unliked Lad Mag writer who believes himself above what he produces, while embodying the very worst of it.
-
Dave Itzkoff is a short effeminate looking man with a high voice who wonders why no one likes him. He thinks it is because he is short and has a high squeaky voice but it's actually because he's a whiny little rodent with no redeeming features. Here he chronicles his experiences at a series of lads magazines. You should feel sorry for the guy because no woman wants to sleep with him. He gets one girl into bed and she tells him to stop in mid-thrust. He also can't even get a girl to make out with him while he is on Ecstasy. One should feel sorry for him but his ponderous writing and whinging whiny attitude really leaves a bad taste in the mouth and what more can I say about this book than, don't bother?
-
I liked it though neither he nor the milieu were very likable. Some laugh out loud funny moments, lots of cringe-worthy toadying type of behaviour too. Written well enough to make for easy reading, even to garner some insight into that particular sort of man's world.
-
This book was at times incredibly cringeworthy and problematic. I had to force myself to read it and it took me two tries to get through it. Awful!
