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  • Dream of the Man-Child
  • Matt Baker (bio)
You Can Make Him Like You. Ben Tanzer. Artistically Declined Press. http://www.artisticallydeclined.net. 214 pages; paper, $12.00.

Popular culture has been having fun lately with the emerging man-child phenomenon. Man-child characters—grown men who are unwilling or unable, for a variety of reasons, to make the leap across the vast gulf between irresponsible post-teenager to responsible adult—have played prominent roles in movies, TV shows, and novels. There have even been a slew of books by social scientists investigating the man-child sensation, proclaiming various theories and offering supporting evidence. This trend isn't solely exemplified by basement dwellers and really began before the recent economic cancer. It started in the 1990s, when the slackers emerged, when today's man-child was graduating from high school and entering college. Sure, the nineties boomed, and those who wanted to jump directly into the midst of the golden path did, but also, there was another group, who in en masse, looked around and said, "What's the hurry?" They lived through their parents' divorce and the ensuing aftermath or watched from the sidelines at their overworked and absent fathers and thought, logically, "Why should I rush into this?" So, that's what they did, took the winding path that veered through places like Boulder and Portland and Minneapolis. Then, eventually the college degree was earned, the hair was cut, the pack-a-day smoking habit extinguished, the beer gut slimmed down, and finally ready to turn around and face the real world at the ripe age of 30 or 37, as in the case of the narrator, Keith, in Ben Tanzer's entertaining novel, You Can Make Him Like You.

So, meet Keith. Chicago city resident, running enthusiast, pleasantly employed in a semi-hip marketing position, and married to a woman who exhibits the hallmarks of super cool chick by understanding that Keith has unresolved existential questions and doesn't nag him about stagnant salaries or lack of career advancement. Tanzer supplies Keith with the requisite doubts, insecurities, and sexual guilt. He freely fantasizes about other women, and at a high school reunion, he runs into an ex-crush who playfully acknowledges that he could've had her, back then, if he'd been man enough to make a move. Then she offers herself, again, twenty years later. Keith struggles, but ultimately passes on her sexual handout and goes back to Chicago feeling good about himself, but still not completely sure if he did the right thing. Then his super cool wife lays it on him: she wants a child. And he does too, but it's not exactly the top item on his personal to-do list. But, he relents, and she gets pregnant. And Keith's dad, whom he has major issues with, because he was one of those always absent types, shows up in the end and Keith discovers a never-before-seen version of his father after he witnesses his handling of their newborn child with gentle and paternal care, soothing the child's cries and lowering him into a restful sleep. "Who is this fucking guy?" Keith proclaims.

Exactly. "Who is this guy," Tanzer seems to be asking. Keith, that is.

Tanzer writes with an easy familiarity. The chapters are short, quickly moving on to the next thought or action, which is fitting because Keith's attention span is rapid fire; a new obstacle or psychological obsession emerges, and once he realizes the solution is far off, he moves on. He also weaves in small details of his contemporary setting, including his private thoughts about what getting off the Red Line train at Addison really means to him, "down the escalator, past the newsstand and on to the street where all of the pathetic, douche bag, butt-munching, pseudo, Yuppy, micro-brew drinking, Sally-ass Cubs fans are gathering at Wrigley for the night's game." He also drops in the fact that there's an important presidential election happening. And although Keith leans right, and occasionally banters with his New York friend, Sammy, about the pros and cons of their polar political...

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