Chris Shulgan seemed like an average young urban father: a house
in Toronto's hip Queen West neighbourhood, a loving marriage,
afternoons at the park with his infant son. But this enviable life
concealed a shocking secret: nights of hard drinking that would
push him, inevitably, to the city's underbelly, where he bought and
smoked crack. At first Shulgan managed to justify his behaviour:
the occasional drug binge allowed him to blow off steam, ultimately
making him a better, more attentive father. Until the night he
found himself poised to choose drugs over his child's safety, and
the carefully constructed façade began to crumble.
Woven through Shulgan's powerful, darkly funny account of his
domestic days and restless nights is an exploration of his own
misguided ideas of fatherhood. At the heart of Superdad, however,
is the deeply personal story of a man finally throwing a light on
the darkest corners of his life.
Advance praise for Superdad:
"Infuriating, moving, and terrifying, Superdad is a
journey into the dark heart of self-destructive hypermasculinty and
out the other side into a kind of uneasy truce between the
idea of 'father' and 'real man.' As a writer, I found myself awed
by Shulgan's tale-teller's facility; as a dad, I found myself
wanting to smack him until he stopped destroying his family and his
life. Superdad is a brave memoir that humanizes the
self-immolating urge of the crack addict."-Cory Doctorow, author of
For the Win and co-editor of Boing Boing
"Christopher Shulgan pulls off a cool sort of alchemy;
Superdad is an illuminating book about delusion, a wise
book about idiocy, a kind-hearted book about acting like a jerk.
And then on top of all that, the man makes writing look
easy."-Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Down to This
and Ghosted
"Take the assumptions you have about fatherhood and addiction,
and the kind of simpering memoirs such issues cook up, and, please,
fly the works off the nearest dock. Superdad is a relief.
At once hilarious and heartbreaking, Shulgan's writing makes room
for something else. Something greater. Trust me, you've been
looking for this one."-Ryan Knighton, author of Cockeyed
and C'mon Papa
