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THE SLIGHTLY OLDER GUY by Bruce Jay Friedman

THE SLIGHTLY OLDER GUY

by Bruce Jay Friedman

Pub Date: June 1st, 1995
ISBN: 0-684-80206-6
Publisher: Simon & Schuster

A veteran humorist offers wry and shticky counsel on how to survive the ``rough patch'' of incipient male aging. Friedman (The Current Climate, 1989, etc.) has been plumbing urban neuroses for a while; here, he alternates chuckle-worthy insights with annoying absurdity. He opens with an amusing checklist for the SOG (e.g., ``You make it through the night without a trip to the bathroom and consider it a cause for celebration''), then lowers his aim by positing how memory loss might lead to an inadvertent phone conversation with Julia Roberts. On sex, he's a hoot: Using baseball terms, he proposes that the SOG should recognize the loss of his ``high hard one'' and instead ``develop a slider.'' He moves on to offer advice about diet (``listen carefully to your body''), appearance (``Nobody admires a Slightly Older Guy who looks like Howard Hughes''), and fitness (treadmills are ``an excellent way to get through Proust''). Regarding ex-wives, he is emphatic: ``The key to amiable coexistence...is to stay out of her life—and hope she stays out of yours.'' And on some bedrock issues, he's downright wise: Avoid feeling personal affronts at a contemporary's success, he warns. He's quite tender toward the concept of the Slightly Older Wife, who, he observes, ``has invested heavily in you.'' Be a good sport about your kids, he says, even if you suspect the child may not be yours. Friedman further offers thoughts on saving money (check Modern Maturity—in private, of course—for travel savings), possible later-life careers (limo driver, memoirist), even a run for office (oppose coddling criminals and TV violence). Finally, he counsels that SOGs tie up loose ends, decide what they want out of life, and proceed—with no whining. Slight, but for Friedman's target demographic, reliably fun. (illustrations)