Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The Boys and Their Baby by Larry Wolff ISBN 13: 9780312028787. The evocation of San Francisco's ambience is the best thing about this sometimes perceptive, sometimes irritating first novel. Wolff blatantly tags his characters with symbolic names: Adam (the innocent first man) comes to California. "synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title. Larry Wolff is Professor of History at New York University. His books include "Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment" (Stanford, 1994), and "Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment" (Stanford, 2001). Marco Cipolloni is Professor and Chair of Spanish Language and Culture at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. His works include "Il sovrano e la corte nelle "cartas" della Conquista"(1991), "Tra memoria apostolica e racconto profetico: Il compromesso etnografico francescano e le "cosas" della Nuova Spagna," (1994), and the critical edition of the "Teatro completo" of Miguel Angel Asturias (2003). From Publishers Weekly : The evocation of San Francisco's ambience is the best thing about this sometimes perceptive, sometimes irritating first novel. Wolff blatantly tags his characters with symbolic names: Adam (the innocent first man) comes to California to teach English in a private school and moves in with his erstwhile Yale roommate Huck (as in Finn) and Huck's adorable baby boy, Christopher, whose presence will indeed redeem all the characters as they move from guilt to penance and redemption. The mother-dominated Adam, so unwordly he is almost a wimp, is overwhelmed by San Francisco's sophistication, its joie de vivre that coexists with an earthquake mentality. He is introduced to Huck's friends: the chanteuse Lucille, who becomes his lover; a gay duo, Timmy and Tommy, who live upstairs; the five students in his class at the Stringfellow School, all of whom are less naive than he; and another former Yale classmate and fellow teacher, Amy Armstrong, with whom he also begins an affair. Questions about fidelity and responsibility, musings about the validity of structuralist criticism (Adam's mother is a noted professor in the field) and the violation of taboos mingle with genuinely appealing scenes of domesticity. But the story is fuzzy and unfocused, and the central eventthe arrival of Christopher's mentally unbalanced motheris foreshadowed with so heavy a hand that suspense is nil. While intelligently written, in the end this novel about "boys who are somehow not quite men and men who are still somehow little boys" offers more promise than satisfaction. Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc. Babes in Boyland : KANSAS IN AUGUST by Patrick Gale (E. P. Dutton: $15.95; 140 pp.) : THE BOYS AND THEIR BABY by Larry Wolff (Alfred A. Knopf: $16.95; 258 pp.) At least two new works of fiction (as well as the film “Three Men and a Baby”) suggest that this is so. Young men accidently become single fathers and find themselves able to commit to fatherhood in a way they could not to other relationships. “Kansas in August,” the latest novel by Britisher Patrick Gale, takes place in neither: In fact, it is London in winter. The title comes from the song, “I’m in Love With a Wonderful Guy” from “South Pacific,” and my only complaint about this amusing, well-crafted, and stylish novel was that the song kept running through my mind while I was reading it. Hilary, the soon-to-be-father, is a failed dancer who loves American musicals; he is pursuing a hopeless romance with Rufus, a bisexual cad. Unbeknown to Hilary, Rufus has begun an affair with his sister, Henry (short for Henrietta), but the incestuous triangle remains secret to all because Henry has concealed her real name and identity from Rufus, lest he feel threatened by her position as a psychiatrist at a very loony loony bin. One night, after being stood up by Rufus, Hilary finds an abandoned baby near a subway station. Hilary takes him to the authorities, but the social worker assumes that he is trying to unload his own illegitimate offspring. Forced to care for the baby (whom he calls Dan, after a pet guinea pig), Hilary finds he likes it, and ultimately decides to adopt him; but complications abound. Gale does for London what Tama Janowitz does for New York and Cyra McFadden did for Marin County. We learn about “signing on” for the dole, life in tower blocks, and Pakki bashing. The characters never moved me deeply, but they were truly clever ducks, and great fun all ‘round. Add to this that Gale turns 26 this year, and it becomes clear that we have a rather daunting talent on our hands. Larry Wolff, who makes his debut as a novelist with “The Boys and Their Baby,” also has a strong sense of place. The place here is San Francisco, where gay couples are common; but for Adam Berg, “homosexuality, like day care, has never been much more than an abstract concept. . . .” Newly arrived, Adam can’t help but notice not only a lot of homosexuality, but that his new roommate, Huck, has an infant son named Christopher, and that Christopher’s mother is mysteriously absent. Adam, a teacher in a private high school, becomes involved with two women: a cabaret singer who ravishes him and a fellow teacher with a penchant for flamboyant shoes. He is also followed by a troubled gay student and threatened by Christopher’s disturbed mother; but the person who has the greatest influence on him is the baby: “There are moments . . . when the baby is so transcendently beautiful that Adam can’t keep looking at him.” Adam’s mother is a famous professor of literature at Yale, and just in case we overlook the significance of the characters’ names--Adam, Huck, Christopher--she points them out to us in letters to her son. This is a coming-of-age novel: Adam and Huck are “boys” whose experience of fatherhood forces them to maturity. Unfortunately, we tend to wonder what took them so long. It’s only fair that men get a piece of the parenting action, since women are becoming astronauts and neurosurgeons. Besides, the men in these novels actually enjoy changing diapers, and that can only represent a giant leap forward for personkind. The Boys and Their Baby. "The boys" are Adam and Huck, former college roommates. A decade out of college and just as long out of touch with each other, they are reunited when Adam arrives to share Huck's apartment on Russian Hill in San Francisco. "Their baby" is Christopher, Huck's entrancing almost-one-year-old son, whose mother is nowhere in evidence and, at first, much to Adam's befuddlement, mysteriously unmentioned. The story centers on Adam as he sets out to construct a life for himself in the unfamiliar city. He assumes his new job as an English teacher at a fancy private school, where one of his students develops an obsessive (and disturbing) interest in him. Adam coasts into simultaneous affairs with two women: one of them a striking, locally celebrated chanteuse, and the other a physics teacher with a distinctive footwear fetish. As the city and its denizens-women and men, gay and straight, young and old-make Adam welcome in various and telling ways. as he approaches a certain peace with his past (through letters to and from his riotously enraged ex-girlfriend and his hugely intimidating mother). as living with the baby and the baby's father exerts a profound influence on Adam. as the story of the baby's missing mother dramatically unfolds. we watch Adam come to surprising terms with his life and himself. The Boys and Their Baby is a wonderfully entertaining novel of domestic and sexual manners, 1980s San Francisco-style, marking the debut of splendidly gifted novelist Larry Wolff. CONNECT WITH THE AUTHOR. SIGN UP FOR AUTHOR UPDATES. MACMILLAN NEWSLETTER. Sign up to receive information about new books, author events, and special offers. Reviews About the Author From the Publisher. Reviews. Reviews from Goodreads. About the author. Larry Wolff. Larry Wolff is Professor of History at New York University. His books include "Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment" (Stanford, 1994), and "Venice and the Slavs: The Discovery of Dalmatia in the Age of Enlightenment" (Stanford, 2001). Marco Cipolloni is Professor and Chair of Spanish Language and Culture at the University of Modena and Reggio Emilia. His works include "Il sovrano e la corte nelle "cartas" della Conquista"(1991), "Tra memoria apostolica e racconto profetico: Il compromesso etnografico francescano e le "cosas" della Nuova Spagna," (1994), and the critical edition of the "Teatro completo" of Miguel Angel Asturias (2003). — Where They’ve Been and Where They Are Now. The Funhouse! Take a Tour of Pink and Carey Hart's Santa Barbara Home. 'Eight Is Enough' Cast Then and Now: See the Stars Reunited. See the Most Adorable Photos of Barbra Streisand's Granddaughter Westlyn. Kevin Costner Has 7 Amazing Kids — Meet His Blended Family. Sandra Bullock Is the Proud Mom of 2 Adopted Kids! Meet Louis and Laila. They may have gotten their start as a garage band in the early 1960s, but it wasn't long before brothers Brian, Carl and , along with cousin and friend Al Jardine, grew much bigger than that as The Beach Boys. Together, they ruled the charts with songs of cars, girls, and surfing, resulting in a music phenomenon that has, in one form or another, lasted more than 50 years and is still going strong. It was never an easy journey, particularly for the Wilsons who were initially held firmly under the thumb of their physically abusive father and, then, eventually having to deal with their own emotional issues, including depression, alcoholism, and drug addiction. Yet through it all, they managed to push on, with, it should be emphasized, Mike Love — love him or hate him — being the guy who worked to keep the name of The Beach Boys alive, refusing to let them and what they'd accomplished fade away. Which, again, was no easy feat given all of the internal battles (and there were many), the changes in musical styles they had to contend with, and so much more. "The Beach Boys have survived every musical trend," Mike writes in his biography, : My Life as a Beach Boy , "from punk and disco to hip-hop and rave. We've lived through vinyl LPs and 45s, 8-tracks followed by cassettes and then CDs, and now downloads and streaming. I know that each generation of fans has very different tastes and sensibilities, and I can't even imagine how consumers will buy and listen to music in the future. But after all these decades, I'm convinced that The Beach Boys' appeal has no demographic boundaries, no technological limits, no expiration date. The world has never been without heartbreak or despair; never without war, terror, hunger or loneliness. That being the case, I believe there will always be a need for a sonic oasis, or music that offers, however briefly, harmony in word, harmony in spirit." Where The Beach Boys are concerned, things were oftentimes anything but harmonious, as you'll discover in this look back at the journeys of the brothers Wilson, Mike Love, and Al Jardine. . In some ways, the success of The Beach Boys became more of a burden to Brian than anything else, finding that the mania that greeted the group was zapping his energy. For this reason, at the end of 1964, he decided to leave the touring aspect of the band so he could focus on songwriting and production. As he explained to , "I felt I had no choice. I was run down mentally and emotionally, because I was running around, jumping on jets from one city to another on one-night stands, also producing, writing, arranging, singing, planning, teaching — at the point where I had no peace of mind and no chance to actually sit down and think or even rest." It wasn't long from then that he was introduced to pot and acid and found himself feeling creatively free and more energetic, but it also triggered "auditory hallucinations" (i.e. he was hearing voices) that have plagued him ever since, stripping him of the idealism that had been a part of the group's earliest days. In his 1991 biography Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story , he writes, "For the past 40 years, I've had auditory hallucinations in my head — all day, every day — and I can't get them out. Every few minutes the voices say something derogatory to me, which discouraged me a little bit. But I have to be strong enough to say to them, 'Hey, would you quit stalking me? Don't talk to me — leave me alone!' I have to say these types of things all day long. It's like a fight." Over the decades, Brian (born Brian Douglas Wilson on June 20, 1942) would deal with bouts of deep depression, total drug addiction, massive weight gains, and for a time turned over the keys to his life to psychologist (and a former record distributor and drug counselor) . Claiming it was necessary to help him, Landy did everything he could to cut Brian off from friends, family and The Beach Boys, and things got to the point that Brian wouldn't make a move without him — paying Landy huge sums of money for the privilege. As Mike Love told ABC News in 1991, "[Landy] said he'd be there a year, a year-and-a-half. Well, when it got to be about five years, we realized that he had no intention of leaving Brian on his own." Later that same year, Brian's new girlfriend, (who had to sneak around with Brian to avoid Landy) and finally made Brian aware of what was really happening, driven home by the fact that Landy was getting 50% of sales of Brian's autobiography. Brian starts to find his footing in life again. As Brian revealed to Larry King in 2004, "I wasn't allowed to call my family or my friends at all for nine years. He [Landy] doped me up with medication. He kept me doped so I couldn't resist what he told me to do. He was a control freak. He gets off on controlling." In between all of this, Brian would sometimes work with The Beach Boys, seldom performed concerts with them, recorded and produced his own solo , and did his best to keep making music while battling his personal demons. He and The Beach Boys did enjoy some truly glorious moments in 2012 for the group's 50th anniversary, playing some concerts and releasing the That's Why God Made the Radio. In more recent years, Brian has done a world tour celebrating the 50th Anniversary of The Beach Boys' classic album , and published the autobiography . In that book, he looks back over the years, reflecting on his mental illness, "Not only wasn't I completely in control of the group, but I wasn't completely in control of myself. How do you know when a problem starts?… Did it start in the '40s when my father whacked me, because he didn't like how I was acting? Did it start in the '70s with drugs or long before that with the beginnings of mental illness that no one knew how to handle? What did it matter when it started? What mattered was that for a while it wouldn't end… I felt like I was slipping away from myself. The time in my life when I had complete control and confidence in the studio was behind me, and I didn't know what was ahead. I didn't know how to get that control and confidence back. I once called it 'ego death.' I didn't know if anything would ever come back to life." Thankfully, despite the struggles he continues to deal with, much of it has. Solo Albums: Brian Wilson (1988), I just Wasn't Made for These Times (1995), (1995), Imagination (1998), Gettin' in Over My Head (2004), What I Really Want for Christmas (2005), That Lucky Old Sun (2008), Brian Wilson Reimagines Gershwin (2010), In the Key of Disney (2011), and (2015). Books: Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story , by Brian and Todd Gold (1991); I Am Brian Wilson: A Memoir , by Brian Wilson and Ben Greenman (2016) Mike Love. There's no denying that Mike Love has taken a lot of crap over the years, some of it coming from what appears to be a combative attitude (including lawsuits against Brian Wilson and Al Jardine) and some of it through misunderstandings on the part of the media and the public. So the question is, is he the keeper of The Beach Boys flame, steadfast in his devotion to the group when others — primarily Brian and Carl Wilson — faltered? Or is he the overly litigious hothead, forever complaining that his contributions to The Beach Boys have been undersold? Either way, as reported by Vanity Fair , he commented, "For those who believe that Brian walks on water, I will always be the Antichrist." Born Michael Edward Love on March 15, 1941, Mike is the cousin to Brian, Carl, and Dennis Wilson, and, with them, launched The Beach Boys. Now, 50 plus years later, he and bandmember Bruce Johnston remain the touring ambassadors who continue to bring the music of the group to audiences around the world, a role Mike has played since pretty much the time Brian started dropping out. His side excursions into music over the decades have been pretty minimal. In the mid-1970s he fronted a band called Celebration, which released the single "Almost Summer" (co-written by Brian and Al Jardine), he recorded a pair of unreleased solo albums, First Love and Country Love , and released Looking Back with Love in 1981. Where he really made headlines was in various lawsuits he launched against Brian, one for defamation of character for statements that Brian made in his book Wouldn't It Be Nice: My Own Story (settled for $1.5 million), copyright claims for quite a number of songs for which he had co-written the lyrics (which found him awarded co-writing credit, $13 million and the license to tour as The Beach Boys), and then for a CD that was given away for free with The Mail On Sunday that featured the name of The Beach Boys and Mike's image as a promotion for 2004's Brian Wilson Presents Smile , his claim being that the CD resulted in the loss of income for the band — a suit that he actually lost. Mike sued Brian reluctantly. In the pages of Life Story , Mike comments, "Listen, I didn't really want to sue Brian at all, because I knew he was sick and I've been very understanding because of that. The facts are that I wrote words to 79 songs for which I didn't receive a credit, let alone royalties. Just one example: 'Good Vibrations,' the song that people associate with The Beach Boys more than any other. When Brian played his finished version to us, we were all knocked out. it was incredible! It was like nothing anyone had ever heard before. i said, 'Brian, this is really cool, but it's a bit weird. Don't you think it'll alienate our fans? Let's give people something they can hold on to while it's happening, something they recognize.' I wrote this simple boy/girl thing, the 'I'm picking up good vibrations/She's giving me excitations' part. When I didn't make it on to the label copy, I was very upset. It's always been 'Brian Wilson this' and 'Brian Wilson that.' There was never any mention of Mike Love's contribution, and I was sick of hearing it." Married five times and fathering six children (one of whom, Shawn Marie, who he never acknowledged, married Dennis Wilson), Mike has just continued to push onward. A personal moment of triumph came with the song "Kokomo," written by him, Scott McKenzie, Terry Melcher and John Phillips, which was released as part of the soundtrack of Tom Cruise's Cocktail in 1988 and went to number one, being the only Beach Boys song to reach that position that didn't have Brian's involvement. "We tried to get him to sing with us, but he turned us down," Mike explained. "I'm not sorry that it went to number one. I'm kind of digging on that I co-write 'Good Vibrations,' and 22 years later had an even bigger hit. 'Good Vibrations' was so avant-garde, still unique to this day. 'Kokomo' is what it was, written to conform to a spot in Cocktail — songwriters for hire." Wherever he goes in the future, there's no question that The Beach Boys never gets old for him. "The beauty of The Beach Boys' music," he noted to the Yorkshire Post, "the stuff that we've created for going on five decades now, it seems to transcend generations. Not only do our original fans still love to hear those songs, their children and some of their grandchildren like The Beach Boys, which is kind of miraculous if you think about it." Carl Wilson. On Dec. 21, 1946, he was born Carl Dean Wilson, and, like Brian and Dennis, was a founding member of The Beach Boys. Playing lead guitar, when Brian retired from the stage, his role became more prominent. For quite some time he was more or less the leader of the group (eventually succeeded by Mike Love), and served as on-stage musical director and produced many of their albums. Unfortunately, like Brian he was plagued with issues of depression and eating binges, often finding himself high with cocaine and over-indulging in alcohol. He did try to clean up his act in the 1980s and turned to recording the solo records Carl Wilson (1981) and Youngblood (1983). Gradually becoming more spiritual, Carl ended up becoming a minster in the Movement of Spiritual Inner Awareness in 1988. Carl was married twice, first to Annie Hinsche, with whom he had two children over the course of their four-year marriage; and, then Dean Martin's daughter, Gina, from 1987 until his death from lung and brain cancer in 1998. Quoting from a 1981 interview, Life Story magazine notes Carl reflecting, "I feel very fortunate. I've had the opportunity to travel around the world a few times and meet many people, and I've really learned to love this place and the people in it. I think that's a really incredible gift." Al Jardine. Born Alan Charles Jardine on Sept. 3, 1942, Al was one of the founding members of The Beach Boys, leaving the band in 1962 to pursue his studies, but persuaded by Brian to rejoin a year later. He may not have been center stage with Brian and Mike, but he certainly had his place and is very comfortable with his role in the group. As he was quoted saying in Life Story magazine, "I was happy. We locked, our harmonies locked. That's all I cared about. Carl and I were the anchors in the back." He remained a part of The Beach Boys until Carl's death in 1998, at which point he felt it was time he went off on his own. That being said, he nonetheless went on tour as The Beach Boys Family and Friends (which featured his sons Matt and Adam as well as Brian's kids, Carnie and — two-thirds of Wilson Philips). That is until Mike Love, who had licensed the name The Beach Boys himself, sued and the group name was ultimately dropped from Al's efforts. His first "solo" album was 2001's Live in Las Vegas (actually featuring the Family and Friends), followed by 2010's A Postcard From California, which featured, among others, David Crosby, Stephen Stills, Neil Young, Glen Campbell and The Beach Boys (seems he was missing the point of a "solo" album). Between those solo albums, he wrote the 2005 children's book Sloop John B: A Pirate's Tale , which was published in 2005 and illustrated by Jimmy Pickering. Of how it came about, Al told swaves.com, "A gentleman approached me to write a children’s book on behalf of a publisher in New York who unfortunately recently passed away. The idea was to get artists like myself and movie stars to lend their name to a project and of course that will help sell books. And my angle was through folk music, which I still love very much, and of course the production of the song ‘Sloop John B.’ So that kind of tied in to the idea of doing a little travelogue you might say, with a young character going on a trip on the Sloop John B with his grandfather. So it was like a little takeoff on a very familiar tale which coincided with the recent popularity of pirates vis-a-vis Johnny Depp, and we thought it would really be kind of cool. So it all kind of worked out.” He was also definitely excited by the notion of The Beach Boys getting back together for their 50th Anniversary, and the album they recorded for it. "Collectively," he said, "they're extremely powerful, and I think they remind us of a better time — a more positive time of growing up as a culture. What we've always done in the music industry is to create memories for people. What I call 'forever memories'. And that's what it is for me, too." The Boys and Their Baby. “The boys” are Adam and Huck, former college roommates. A decade out of college and just as long out of touch with each other, they are reunited when Adam arrives to share Huck’s apartment on Russian Hill in San Francisco. “Their baby” is Christopher, Huck’s entrancing almost- one-year-old son, whose mother is nowhere in evidence and, at first, much to Adam’s befuddlement, mysteriously unmentioned. The story centers on Adam as he sets out to construct a life for himself in the unfamiliar city. He assumes his new job as an English teacher at a fancy private school, where one of his students develops an obsessive (and disturbing) interest in him. Adam coasts into simultaneous affairs with two women: one of them a striking, locally celebrated chanteuse, and the other a physics teacher with a distinctive footwear fetish. As the city and its denizens —women and men, gay and straight, young and old—make Adam welcome in various and telling ways…as he approaches a certain peace with his past (through letters to and from his riotously enraged ex-girlfriend and his hugely intimidating mother)…as living with the baby and the baby’s father exerts a profound influence on Adam…as the story of the baby’s missing mother dramatically unfolds…we watch Adam come to surprising terms with his life and himself. The Boys and Their Baby is a wonderfully entertaining novel of domestic and sexual manners, 1980s San Francisco-style, marking the debut of splendidly gifted novelist Larry Wolff. About Larry Wolff. Larry Wolff is the Silver Professor of History and the director of the Center for European and Mediterranean Studies at Stanford University. He is the author of The Boys and their Baby.