The reviewer's first temptation is to create a new genre called, say, dad-lit and proclaim Neil Pollack as a pioneer. But that ignores the marketing ploys at work here and suggests this memoir of hip fatherhood had an immaculate conception and painless, pristine birth. If dad-lit exists, it's still gestating.

Alternadad probably has less to do with the birth of a genre than the death of a weary, older form. The market is flooded with motherhood guides. In step the savvy male author and his publisher's Department of Snappy Hooks.

Pollack is the switched-on author of fiction, magazine articles and blogs with a rock'n'roll attitude. He is the type who rarely leaves the suburbs - even on holiday - but insists on living in soulful areas that need a little love from an overeducated white guy. He should have been the man to reel in reading blokes with tales of delaying adolescence into fatherhood. But after 368 pages the lessons are few and the successes of life without compromise, apart from a publishing deal, are close to naught.

We follow Pollack from the marijuana-smoke haze of his youth to his marriage to artist Regina after answering her ad: 'Wayward Southern Belle seeks single gentleman with penchant for scatological humour'.

They drift to Austin, Texas, to continue their careers from home, dividing the parenthood shifts evenly while starting a rock band, catching a few happy hours at bars each week and rescuing another dodgy neighbourhood. Their son, Elijah, is expected to become the 'new roommate'.

Most parents find their carefully researched strategy changes almost immediately after birth and regularly after that. The fascinating challenge for the Pollacks is their rigid determination to stay cool and flexible. Our decision-averse hipsters suddenly face the consequences, for Elijah, of their address, their lifestyle and income.

Elijah is kicked out of child care for biting and lacking 'impulse control'. 'We'd read that parents shouldn't delay punishment, and if they did, they definitely shouldn't offer rewards in lieu of punishment. But when faced with an actual crisis, we'd choked and ignored all normal advice,' Pollack writes.

He is far from incapable of self-awareness and often touches on emotions few would acknowledge: 'I loved being a daddy. Of course, at other moments, I kind of hated being a daddy.'

By the end of the book the family is packing up and heading to LA so Pollack can try scriptwriting. ''What we going to do in Los Angeles, Daddy?' I told him what I hoped would soon be true: 'Whatever the hell we want to, son.''

Pollack begins to spell out the alternadad philosophy in the last 50 pages and only then while fighting his way out of the huge number of enraged responses to an article on his parenting ideas.

The rest of the book is made up of cutesy toddler dialogue and strings of quotations from mundane conversations with his wife. We presume memoirists who use that technique record most of their conversations or have world-class memories.

Pollack's book promises to make the parenthood guide hip, even manly. Like most attempts to reshape a genre for a different demographic, Alternadad clings to the old audience it is supposed to be subverting and makes occasional plays for new readers. Though funny and bravely honest, Alternadad may leave new parents and parents-to-be wondering whether they need to hear from a bumbling first-time dad, or whether they should save the money and ask their parents.

It is most valuable as a guide to cool children's music for parents. For the record, Pollack recommends the Ramones, the Vines and the For The Kids compilations.