While Natalie's Been At School

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Superdad: A Memoir of Rebellion, Drugs and Fatherhood
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Amazon
Chapters/Indigo
(Release: Sept. 30, 2010)
"Turns the urban dad story on its head—and then rights it again. Beneath Shulgan's outwardly loving life with his young family in a hip part of Toronto lurked a darkness; Shulgan was a hard drinker—and something of a crackhead. In an unsparing, but also comic, account of his ventures into the deep woods off the parental path, he explores his own notions of fatherhood. And challenges ours."--The Globe and Mail

"Infuriating, moving, and terrifying, Superdad is a journey into the dark heart of self-destructive hypermasculinty and out the other side into a kind of uneasy truce between the idea of 'father' and 'real man.' As a writer, I found myself awed by Shulgan's tale-teller's facility; as a dad, I found myself wanting to smack him until he stopped destroying his family and his life. Superdad is a brave memoir that humanizes the self-immolating urge of the crack addict." --Cory Doctorow, author of For The Win and co-editor of Boing Boing

“Christopher Shulgan pulls off a cool sort of alchemy; Superdad is an illuminating book about delusion, a wise book about idiocy, a kind-hearted book about acting like a jerk. And then on top of all that, the man makes writing look easy.” -- Shaughnessy Bishop-Stall, author of Down to This and Ghosted

My first book

Shortlisted for the National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction.

The Soviet Ambassador: The Making of the Radical Behind Perestroika
How diplomacy and a decade-long exile in Ottawa transformed Mikhail Gorbachev's trusted advisor, Aleksandr N. Yakovlev, into the most potent force for freedom and democracy ever to walk the corridors of the Kremlin.
Published by McClelland & Stewart.

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Since the start of September, Natalie's been wickedly busy getting through the intense first semester of a two-year program for former labour and delivery nurses who want to become midwives. The good thing about this is that in a year and a half she'll be a midwife. And the bad thing, or what I at first thought was a bad thing, is that it left most of the childcare responsibilities with me.

Most days, it was me getting them ready for school and it was me picking them up after school and it was me figuring out what to do until dinner and getting everybody ready for bed and reading the bedtime story and, usually, falling asleep next to them, and when Natalie returned from her night class or her anatomy lab in Hamilton or her late-night study sessions that's how she'd find us, her husband and her two kids flaked out on the king-size bed.

Natalie is a gifted multi-tasker. I am not. I have to focus on one thing in order to get it done and the thing about childcare is that you have to be able to multi-task, you're in the middle of getting on the mittens when the other one spills the apple juice and then there's a tantrum about boots-wearing and meanwhile if you're getting them to school on time it means you forgot the mittens or some other article of winter wear.

The family collectively got a little crazy through September and into October.

And then those mornings started getting routine. The three of us, my two kids and I, we fell into our roles and got to know each other and how to live together as a trio. For example, going home after school for snack often meant we didn't leave the house again which meant bedtime was a disaster and so I learned I had to bring the snack with me for the pick-up and then start the afternoon activity pretty much immediately.

We spent a lot of time in Trinity-Bellwoods Park, or in Kensington Market trying on the sunglasses and ordering the usual at Big Fat Burrito, or at Mountain Equipment Co-op with our shoes off playing in the second-floor tent section.

I went on a school field trip with them, apple-picking a long bus ride north of Toronto.

The apples were pretty' good.

It happens slowly, coming into your own as a dad. You spend a couple of years feeling like you're barely keeping it together and then if you're lucky, something happens.

Like your wife goes back to school.

As I'm typing this Natalie is writing her final exam of the semester. She's in Hamilton. She'll get on a Go Train and come back into Toronto and next semester is supposed to be a hell of a lot easier and so when she gets home we have her back, it'll be the four of us again.

Turns out I really enjoyed my semester as a single parent. Recently my daughter woke up in the night, wailing, and I raced upstairs and scooped her up and instead of looking around for mom or looking into my eyes to ask where's mom, she wriggled her hips into my arms and calmed down. I calmed her down. Me.