My youngest son, Tom has just finished writing a book. I’m not surprised that he’s a writer because he tends towards the creative end of the spectrum with his primary medium being video and photography. I was also aware that he dabbled in writing. When he told me he was finishing up a book and that he wanted me to read it, I found that mildly amusing and thought it would be a typical first effort for which I would need to find ways to say positive things to encourage him and yet to give him enough criticism to help him improve. What I wasn’t expecting was the magnum opus that he produced and that I’ve just finished reading over the course of the day. It was a shocker.
He has titled the book New Guy, and it’s about the experience he went through during college with his a cappella singing group. The fundamental story told in the book is a story with which I am familiar because it all turned into a fairly dramatic series of events that very much shaped the last part of his college career. What I didn’t realize was the extent of those events and that it all did much more than frame his senior year. What I now understand is that this all defined his entire collegiate career and indeed has been a major crucible that has forged him as a man.
But the book is not about singing, it’s about hazing and institutional response to bad acts by college-sponsored organizations. This is a story that has found its way into the national press, but never from the insider perspective before this. But what it really is about is the masculinity development model that has been passed down through generations of young men and the dysfunctional mismatch of that model and the contemporary reality of acceptable and appropriate gender roles. That also wanders into the realms of subordinate treatment and, indeed, common courtesy in a world where everything from transactional indifference, warrior culture and power tropes have placed simple human decency under assault.
College a cappella has actually gone through a couple of “vogue” waves. It’s origins date to 1900s-1920s with the oldest college a cappella groups, like Yale’s Whiffenpoofs, growing out of college glee clubs. Post-WWII there was a boom in the 1940s-1960s, when many of the most famous groups formed like Yale’s Baker’s Dozen (1947) and Princeton’s Nassoons (1941). These and similar all-male groups were modeled on barbershop and pop harmony styles, often performing in blazers with a “preppy” Ivy League image. The modern explosion came in 1990s-2000s This is really when a cappella became a widespread campus phenomenon rather than a niche Ivy League tradition. Contemporary pop arrangements (covering current chart hits with vocal percussion/beatboxing instead of traditional standards) took off, and mixed-gender and all-female groups also multiplied. It all hit a pop culture peak in 2009-2015 with Glee, The Sing-Off and especially the Pitch Perfect films (2012 onward). In fact, Pitch Perfect was written by Mickey Rapkin, who had been a member of Cornell’s Cayuga’s Waiters.
As the youngest member of my nuclear family, Tom (or Thomas, as we tend to call him) has always gotten more than his fair share of familial kidding and jibes. He is naturally more emotionally-driven than other family members and generally more idealistic on many levels. I certainly knew that Thomas was deeply impacted by the episode. I would go so far as saying that I knew it was a defining life event for him. What I didn’t know was that he would make lemonade from those lemons both in terms of garnering strong life lessons and using it to develop his storytelling and writing skills to the point where I believe he has not only eclipsed my writing abilities, but also perhaps produced a significant work that may well get broad circulation.
I have never been a person who wants to remain better than my children or subordinates. I have always felt that the best reflection of myself would come from those who learned from me to be better than me. That’s especially so for my kids, so I’m thrilled to see Thomas become a good writer. But I am shocked that Thomas has become Tom the writer on his first big effort. That is the most unexpected revelation in a book that offers me many eye-popping revelations. The details of the bad acts perpetrated by these men of his a cappella group are certainly shocking in an absolute sense. The honesty and clarity of his assessment of the impact various family members have had on his character development is impressive. His ability to balance the assessment of his own acts throughout the story is noteworthy. His psychological and institutional grasp of the real world is only eclipsed by his humility and impressive ability to handle it all (albeit taking ten years to fully process). But the writer in me is most impressed by the crafting of his thoughts and words into this book.
I believe I am the first person who has read this story in its entirety (his wife Jenna has read parts of it). I read it in the span of 36 hours. Actually, I spent 10 hours listening to it on Speechify. I couldn’t put it down and I can’t stop thinking about it. He didn’t get all the family details 100% correct, but those are minor errors. The book is still a gripping story. I think it will be gripping for any reader. It will be interesting who he allows to read it next and how the rest of the family will react to it.
I think I understand my children and family members pretty well. I’ve had some surprises along the way, but none quite as startling as this one. Today Tom is clearly a “new guy” to me after this and he may well have, through this book, defined the new guy of the future.