Rutgers-Camden Author Captivates Parents and the Publishing World
Avoid the golf balls, ties, and grilling supplies this Father’s Day. Perhaps the guy tired from his kids’ exhausting bedtime demands would appreciate his own storybook as well as some serious laughs.Writer and father Adam Mansbach, the Rutgers University–Camden New Voices Professor for 2009-2011, authored the satire picture book for fellow fatigued parents that has occupied Amazon’s number one spot and generated hearty Facebook chatter for weeks. Titled Go the (Expletive) to Sleep, the spoof, gorgeously illustrated by Ricardo Cortés, gained so much attention months before its scheduled publication in October by Akashic Books that it will now be printed on June 14, right in time for Father’s Day.
With media coverage from The New Yorker to CNN to NPR to the Los Angeles Times, all weeks before publishing, Mansbach admits to being in a whole new territory as a writer. “Typically the onus is on the author to hustle the book, once it’s actually printed. Very few writers, when the book is not even out yet, are getting this kind of attention,” he says.
As a parent though, struggling with a sleepless household is nothing new. Mansbach’s direct and refreshing approach on this once private battle however has liberated wiped-out parents everywhere. “Basically because the book is honest, it’s resonating with people. This is a familiar experience that’s not talked about,” explains the Rutgers–Camden writer. “The emails I’m getting are saying ‘thank you’ and ‘I feel less alone.’”
Mansbach’s playful stanzas mix traditional bedtime banter with very real parental frustration:
The cubs and the lions are snoring
Wrapped in a big snuggly heap
How come you can do all this other great (expletive)
But you can’t lie the (expletive) down and sleep?
Not only is the book’s premise unique, but its unofficial launch, which included a public reading followed by a social media frenzy, also has the publishing world befuddled. When a pirated version of the book began circulating online, instead of readers getting their fill for free, they lined up in droves to own the real thing.
“I guess most people know that it’s bad form to show up at a baby shower with a stapled picture book,” Mansbach jokes.
Often dubbed a hip-hop novelist because of his best-selling Angry Black White Boy, the former MC, DJ, and hip-hop magazine editor says he has always written what he’s wanted to without strategizing its marketability first. His novel The End of the Jews, a California Book Award-winner, depicts two generations of Jewish writers borrowing from each other’s lives for their own fiction. While the forthcoming Rage is Back ventures into magic realism, with graffiti artists finding secret, time-travelling staircases in New York City.
Writing down your passions and not shying away from different genres is not only what Mansbach practices; it’s also what he teaches. At Rutgers–Camden’s MFA program in creative writing, sharpening writing skills in all genres is imperative. During Mansbach’s visiting professorship that ended this semester, he taught multiple courses that spanned topics and genres.
“One of the things I had done at Rutgers is to help students to experiment with genre, to write outside of the box of the genres they see themselves in,” recalls Mansbach, who recently sold the film rights of Go The (Expletive) to Sleep to Fox 2000. “I taught screenwriting to poets and fiction writers, which made them think about their own work in a new light. I encourage students to write what they’re passionate about in whatever form that fits.”
Mansbach will leave Rutgers–Camden to return to California with his wife and energetic muse of a daughter – whose image is lovingly captured in the book’s illustrations – but will return to campus for future lectures and readings. Lawnboy author Paul Lisicky, whose work has been funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, will leave New York University to begin serving as Rutgers–Camden’s New Voices Professor this fall.
Media Contact: Cathy K. Donovan
(856) 225-6627
E-mail: catkarm@camden.rutgers.edu