Inspired by the upcoming Academy Awards, I’m casting my book from current Oscar nominees. Playdate began with a simple movie pitch: Shampoo meets Mr. Mom. Clearly, Warren Beatty and Michael Keaton have aged out of playing my stay-at-home-dad (SAHD) protagonist. And the book has grown well beyond its one-sentence premise, so that each character, male and female, child and adult, became their own ornery being.

Cast Lance, the SAHD, and the rest of the book falls into place. This modern, easy-going dad loves his daughter Belle, is trying to father another child with his distracted wife Darlene, and has Tantric sex with Wren, the wife of Darlene’s business partner Alec. See  Mark Ruffalo in The Kids Are All Right as the charming sperm donor trying to wiggle his way in to his biological children’s nuclear family after a lifetime of casual sex, and there are the seeds of Lance.

What about Lance’s Tantric sex partner? [Read more…]