Smug Dad: Unique and funny – a surreal look at the fallibility of the male ego

Smug Dad forms part of what the author has called “The Boyband Sandwich Trilogy” with noughties prequel How to Murder a Boyband to be published by Cranthorpe Millner directly after Smug Dad and contemporary How NOT to Murder a Boyband almost complete serving as the sequel, so the two Boyband novels as the sandwich with Smug Dad the meat in the middle!

Having taken a full twelve years for Jason Roche to take his story from conception to publication, the author has created a unique, disturbing, lewd and laugh out loud funny book with a protagonist, Douglas Perfors, that will strike chord with every modern father.

Perceptive and capturing all the nuances of what it means to live a ‘perfect’ life, Smug Dad spans a range of literary genres. And, not wanting to keep his audience waiting, the prequel and sequel to his “The Boyband Sandwich Trilogy” are already in the publishing pipeline, as well as plans for a spin-off to the Smug Dad narrative.

A highly original piece of writing from a very exciting debut novelist, Smug Dad is testament to the adage that slow and steady can definitely win the race.

Synopsis:

The modern male ego ... fallible yet ultimately malleable. Douglas Perfors is pretty damn close to perfect ... perfect wife, perfect children, perfect physique, perfect job, perfect house, perfect intentions ... yet unaware of this adulation and seamless displays of it, he has become nothing other than smug, a Smug Dad. Add in a pre-kids’ backstory steeped in domestic tedium, a surreal TV watching compulsion and a procreatory feminist pact, everything is flipped from Smug Dad to Doug’s Mad.

The author says:

“What makes Smug Dad unique is that it is disturbing, surreal, redemptory, ribald, and nihilistic, straddling multiple genres and emotions … you’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll wince, you’ll lament, you’ll hurl (or at least reel back in abhorrence), you’ll attempt to spot the twists, you’ll try deciphering the spoonerized titles, you’ll cheer! I hope! With a unique yet distinct feminist angle and a set of compelling female characters Smug Dad might change the concept of a supervillain / superhero forever!”

“Smug Dad began life on a muggy summer’s day 2009 in Muswell Hill, North London with the final edit a mere 12 years later, a surfeit of life, keyboard tapping, missing train stops lost in the telling, blocks, hiatuses, self- doubt, children, provision, reality and good times in between. The memory of wandering upstairs to start this idea I was immensely excited about, a slight calm in the parenting battlefield apparent, is as vivid as if it were yesterday, the blank page daring me to take the plunge. As a Dad myself there was reference to the familiar paternal base of Smug Dad but with the more vicarious and outlandish elements it was fun to exercise the more fanatically phantastic and uncompromising places of one’s imagination.”

Published by Cranthorpe Millner and published on 14 th December 2021, Smug Dad is available in paperback (£8.99) to pre-order from the publishers , at Waterstones and at Foyles and It is also available as Kindle