In this raucous, shallow, “87% true” memoir, Wieder, producer of such reality TV dreck as My Big Fat Obnoxious Fiancé
, leaves his wife, Samantha, out of boredom; the ball-and-chain discarded, he buys a Porsche, listens to gangster rap and beds a string of young hotties. His second adolescence derails when he develops an obsession with penis size that compels him to measure his member 20 times a day and undertake exercises, gruesomely recounted, gleaned from the online penis-enlargement industry. Wieder is a master of the hip-hop–inflected frat-boy banter, its swagger and misogyny cut with self-deprecation, that Hollywood has made the voice of American masculinity. But his journey from smug self-indulgence through gonzo comeuppance to contrite re-embrace of committed love feels as pat and forced as a reality romance. Rote obsequies aside, Samantha comes off as a pallid drudge, and Wieder's resentment of her and the other needy women who made him “bec[o]me a boyfriend before I ever got to be a boy” never lifts. He remains that most parochial—and uninteresting—of L.A. archetypes: the man who doesn't want to grow up. (July 22)
