Adam and Vivien Mansbach. Credit: Joanne Furio for Berkeleyside
When Vivien Mansbach attended the Berkeley Rose Waldorf School, all their friends knew they were the child who inspired their father, Adam Mansbach, to write a popular children’s book with the unforgettable title “Go the F**k to Sleep.”
A parody of a picture book, its seemingly lighthearted verse contains a few well-placed F-bombs. The book became a bible for weary Gen X parents. It was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller. Samuel L. Jackson narrated the audiobook.
Once Vivien began high school at the Oakland School for the Arts, a charter school open to Berkeley residents, no one in their new crowd had any idea of who their father was. Before long, they were peppered with questions. “What is your last name?” “Did your father write a book?”
When Vivien admitted that yes, they were a Mansbach and, yes, that Adam Mansbach is their father, “The usual response was, ‘Oh, my dad has that book in the living room.’”
Were they embarrassed? No. In fact, Vivien thought it was kind of “cool” to be the inspiration for one of what was by that time three picture books their father had written.
“It’s nice to recognize the sweet undertones of those books, even though they’re full of profanity and jokes,” Vivien said, of the popular series. “I could always recognize the love coming through.”
With the publication of Adam’s latest book, the fourth in the series, “Go the F**k to College,” the spotlight again shifts to Vivien, the eldest of Mansbach’s three children, completing a circle that began with their arrival. Now 18 and a high school senior, they will be leaving for Bard College in Annandale–on-Hudson, New York, in a few months.
Adam and Vivien talked about the books and their close relationship in the family’s ADU in the Berkeley Hills, where Adam’s cases of books are outdone only by a wall of LPs. Not surprisingly, the conversation contained a mix of profanity, humor and thinly veiled deep emotions that characterize Mansbach’s writing style. His 2023 satirical novel, “The Golem of Brooklyn,” will be followed by a sequel in the fall.
To celebrate the launch of “Go the F**k to College,” Adam Mansbach will be in discussion with fellow Berkeley author Peggy Orenstein at 7 p.m. on May 23 at Mrs. Dalloway’s.
Even though Vivien was “a delightful and hilarious kid,” Adam acknowledged that, because they were his first child, he really “didn’t have a clue.” “The only thing Viv did not do particularly easily was to go to sleep when they were 1, 2, 3 years old. It was just an inability to shut down.” Vivien could sometimes take up to four hours to fall asleep. Adam wrote the book when Vivien was 3.
“I like to think of it as, I wanted the party to go on,” Vivien said.
Vivien as a sleepless toddler. Courtesy: Vivien Mansbach
Not all the ‘Go the F**k’ books are about Vivien
Growing up with a dad who wrote books that happened to be filled with curse words, Vivien, as a child, was also tempted to use such words themself, testing the boundaries.
“It was sort of like, he can’t get mad at me for cursing,” Vivien said. The way they got around that was “very slick,” Adam said. They would cite the title of one of his books. “Yeah, my dad wrote a book,” they would say. “Guess what it’s called.”
The next book in the series, “You Have to F**king Eat” (2014) wasn’t about Vivien at all, Adam said, since they “pretty much ate everything.” But he had heard so much about picky eaters he decided to go outside the family to conduct his research. After the book’s publication Vivien, then around 6, did not hear from friends, but remembers being teased by adults about qualities they assumed were theirs.
“I would say, ‘Oh, that book’s not about me,” Vivien said. “I do go to sleep and I do eat everything.”
When Adam became a father again with the arrival of girls Asa, now 7, and Zanthe, now 9, he wrote “F**k. Now There Are Two of You,” in 2019, which describes the chaos that ensues when a toddler is joined by a new sibling. Adam called the book “an understatement — because then there were three at that point.”
Like all of Adam’s books, the illustrations include children of different genders and ethnicities and are not intended to represent his own children.
Vivien, then 11, said they were “maybe a little relieved” that the book didn’t focus on them. Since they were also a bit older, they were able to recognize some of the experiences their father drew from real life and the emotions that leaked through, despite all the cleverness and occasional profanity.
For example, they remembered conversations about getting a second half-sister and the pie metaphor that appears in the book: “I don’t love you any less now, my dear./Love’s not a pie; we don’t have to divide it./I’m just so frazzled I hate everybody/And I’m too f**king tired to hide it.”
“Our relationship in general is the kind where love is being shown in silly or ironic ways. It’s always been easier for me to show appreciation and love through humor or kind of disguised within something unserious,” Vivien said. “I don’t know if that’s a bad thing. Once I was older enough to read the books by myself and understand the context, I realized they’re very loving books. The love is evident.”
Like a premonition, “F**k, Now There Are Two of You” ends with the idea of children one day going off to college, an idea several friends had suggested as a sequel. “Sometimes when you both are sleeping,/ We watch you, secure in the knowledge/ That one day this madness will come to an end/And you’ll both go the f**k off to college.”
Six years later, Vivien and Adam are touring colleges back east when it suddenly hits him that a year later Vivien would be moving away and he would be saying goodbye. Soon, a sequel was in the works.
The illustrations in ‘Go the F**k to College’ are what first moved Vivien
When Vivien learned that their father would again be using their relationship as inspiration for a book, they didn’t get emotional until they saw Owen Bozeman’s illustrations. He had done the art for books two through four. The flashback images were moving, Vivien said, along with the mention of “the lifeless house.”
“That is sad, but then it’s not that sad because he says it’s lifeless because there’s “nothing to fill the time we spent/Cleaning up your fucking mess,” Vivien said. “He’s sort of roasting me a little bit, or roasting teenagers in general. But it’s cool to have more of a personality in this book, even if it’s meant to be a one-size-fits-all teenager. I’m more of a character than when I was 2 years old.”
An image inspired by their own lives depicts a father and son talking in the car, where many of their important conversations have taken place.
“Go the F**k to College” is written by Adam Mansbach and illustrated by Owen Bozeman. Courtesy: Akashic Books
“It’s a cool sort of middle ground when you’re a teenager,” Vivien said. “You don’t have to be staring at each other.’”
When Vivien goes the f**k to college in a few months, they are preparing for a dramatic change in scenery, climate and culture in New York’s Hudson Valley. Mansbach, who’s from Boston, worries about his Northern California child in what can be a comparatively cruel climate of the Northeast. He has already given them advice on never-ending winters, followed by the magnificence of springs.
When the day comes to leave, Vivien thinks it will be “terrible probably.” Because Vivien spends roughly half their time with their father and half with their mother, they’ve already experienced “a million goodbyes and hellos and re-acclimating,” they said. They’re used to saying goodbye to their “Papa” for weeks at a time — and sometimes months in the summer.
“The gravity will begin to set in when I realize: Here I am all by myself,” they said. “I’m scared and think it’s OK to admit that.”
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