Doom's overdone, so Darby shares hope and hard laughs.
Fraternal Youth is an experimental memoir with QR codes to videos and cultural artifacts such as:
- their dog fetching beer from the fridge (Darby's COVID project)
- gladiator funboard challenges
- family performances
- mom pranks
- gag reels
Fraternal Youth Cocktail:
5 parts fatherhood fails + the absurdity of life
4 parts goofy boy-girl twins + their crazy pets
3 parts adventure (Bonnaroo, Greece, hitchhiking)
2 parts peaceful parenting + simple discipline systems
1 part Headlines of Hope: a six-year hunt for tech, energy, and medical "miracles"

Praise for Fraternal Youth
"Mix Jim Gaffigan, Erma Bombeck and Pee Wee Herman into a Darby Smoothie. Add a dash of nonsense that makes perfect sense and you've got a compilation that spans from raising kids to raising hell. I'm an avid fan."
- Wendy Parker, satirist for Overdrive Magazine

"Darby stunned me with this book. It's happy, funny, sad and weird - all the things that make up a life well lived, and he tells it with such beauty and momentum. So many chapters swept me away."
- Ginger Cook, Substack Humorist

Early Excerpts
I changed my first diaper on August 27, 2007. It smelled like fermented mothballs with a touch of failed dreams. I don't know where those subtle notes came from, but they were good reminders to use birth control.
2 years, 8 months old
Kids got in trouble at the store. Finn dropped a can of tinned pork on Melina's middle toe. The SPAM survived, but Momma no longer has a piggy that eats roast beef. The toe's still there, but it's a scarred vegetarian now.
3 years, 8 months
"Finn, didn't you say you'd drink your juice after dinner?"
"I didn't hear me say that."
4 years, 10 months
"Shhhh! I heard a sound make a noise." - Fiona
5 years, 11 months
"Every time you go into war, you should go potty first." - Finn