A Lad Overblown

When Dave Itzkoff quit his job as an associate editor at Maxim magazine, he was to have the usual send-off. There would be drinking – in this case, at an open-air rooftop bar. There would be a company tab opened and closed before employees could say “ad revenue.” And there would be the presentation of a mock Maxim cover bearing an unflattering picture of Mr. Itzkoff, amid cover lines making brutal jokes at his expense. (Around the office, the greatest form of flattery was the ridicule of your coworkers.)Except, it rained. So the party was rescheduled, and this created something of an awkward situation. In the interim, the New York Press ran a cover story Mr. Itzkoff wrote titled “Lad No More: My Escape From Maxim.” In it, he excoriated his former employer for its haphazard management style, its dearth of traditional magazine journalism, and its disingenuous pursuit of readers. Mr. Itzkoff believed that the mischievous men’s magazine, then still rapidly increasing in circulation month after month, was a “slickly cynical testament to the fact that good window-dressing is all that’s needed to bring a customer into the shop, even if there’s no merchandise to be found inside.’He complimented his former colleagues – I, like Mr. Itzkoff, was an associate editor at the time – but nonetheless many of us felt betrayed … sort of. While the act of writing a “tellall” article was treasonous, the tell-all ended up telling little. It was true that the staff was overworked and some times mismanaged. But even Mr. Itzkoff acknowledged that much of what he described was the case at any number of successful magazines.Mr. Itzkoff’s new book, “Lads: A Memoir of Manhood,” (Villard, 288 pages, $23.95) which found its genesis in that article, is not much of an improvement. It is itself largely window-dressing, relying in large part on a supposed fascination with the very publishing phenomenon his original article denounced. The reader is left to wonder what is book-selling sensationalism, and what true insight into the writer’s heart.It is, though, well-written, an unflinching, flinch-inducing account of becoming a man in a world seemingly bereft of role models. Mr. Itzkoff fights with his father, fails with women, does drugs, attempts suicide by overdose, looks on as his father nearly dies from an accidental overdose, seeks solace with a hooker, and finally ends up in therapy.The story begins shortly after the author’s graduation from Princeton – he claims to be ashamed of his alma mater every single time he mentions it, which is remarkably often. He moves back in with his parents and is once again subjected to the most influential, and most destructive, person in his life: his father. Mr. Itzkoff can’t deal with his father’s history of cocaine addiction and emotional instability, and he wants out. The romanticized world of men’s magazines (Mr. Itzkoff worked at Details before Maxim) seems to promise this.You feel for him. But the portions of the book that deal with Mr. Itzkoff’s personal life are written at an almost fever pitch of pathos – he is seemingly just as upset by a co-worker’s impression of him as he is by his father’s near death – is that genuine heartache gets lost in the emotional white noise. This is particularly true when he writes about women.Mr. Itzkoff goes into great detail about two love interests he barely gets to know, yet his mother and sister are portrayed as little more than one-dimensional irritants. Mr. Itzkoff does have genuine feelings for a fellow editor, and is crushed when she begins dating one of their co-workers. This prompts him to swallow several bottles of sleeping pills, only to regurgitate them the next morning.Still, no woman – not even a call girl he solicits after being shaken up by his father’s overdose – seems able to compete with Mr. Itzkoff himself. As he succinctly writes, “I don’t mean to brag, but I can masturbate to anything.” And he proves it in graphic detail that would make Alexander Portnoy blush.Mr. Itzkoff takes too many liberties, bending the truth to fit the story he wishes to tell rather than presenting an honest examination of his own motives. To take just one example, he explains his trauma over his decision to leave Details, where he worked as an editorial assistant for the mercurial editor-in chief Mark Golin.Mr. Itzkoff is mildly infatuated with his new boss, with whom he has “the natural rapport of a Borscht Belt comedy team.” But the honeymoon is cut short when Mr. Itzkoff has lunch with a friend from college, now a Maxim editor looking to hire someone. Suddenly convinced that he can’t be around Mr. Golin any longer because of his similarities to his father, a guilt-ridden Mr. Itzkoff decides to abandon his mentor.That’s how it happens in the book, anyway. In reality, he’d been freelancing for Maxim regularly without his mentor’s knowledge. This may seem small, but it a serious distortion. This is supposed to be an intensely confessional book, but instead of being truthful and coming to terms with his past, he distorts the truth in order to tell a story of high drama and perpetual victim hood.My fondest memory of working with Mr. Itzkoff came during a brainstorming session for a story about phony celebrity-endorsed candy. After several minutes of silence, he sprang to life, looked at me gravely, and in a measured tone said, “Almond Joy Behar.” His deadpan delivery of what he knew was an awful suggestion sent tears of laughter streaming down my face. He even solved our dilemma by then coming up with Jennifer Lo-Pez. He could be a lot of fun.Sadly, that isn’t the side of Mr. Itzkoff evident in this book. Instead, we see a self-loathing egotist who seethes with anger at his father, at women, at life – at everything. We see no change in Mr. Itzkoff, until suddenly he enters therapy with his father in the last three pages of the book. It is then, after their first successful session, that his father hugs him to his chest and, just that easily, mollifies Mr. Itzkoff by telling him he’s “a brave little boy.”Maybe so. But it’s anybody’s guess how much he learned about becoming a man.Mr. Henderson is a writer living in New York.

A Lad Overblown

More from the New York Sun

Israel and Lebanon Coordinate Aid Convoy to Christian Villages in Combat Zone

Emerging Claim That Targeting Civilian Infrastructure Is a War Crime Proves a Bridge Too Far

Stanford Calls Bluff on Students Using Jain Faith To Dodge Meal Plan

South Florida GOP Congresswoman’s Immigration Reform Bill Sparks Backlash From Colleagues, Conservative Commentariat

Middle-Class Americans Prove the Biggest Winners From Trump’s Tax Cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill

In a Funeral for Economic Liberty, the Casket Cartel Seeks To Bury the Competition

The Double Tragedy of the Jewish Bund

Borrowing a Page From El Salvador’s Bukele, Ecuadoran President Welcomes American Troops To Assist With His Drug Gang Crackdown