It's tough to be a great mother, wife, daughter and do-it-all professional. Mountains of books have relayed that struggle for years.

Now, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon serves up an engaging flip of the coin in "Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasure and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son" (HarperCollins).

"Anything worth doing is worth doing badly." Chabon's witty musings on being a male with integrity begin with this pithy insight from English writer G.K. Chesterton.

Chabon screws up badly in sex, love, friendships and his relationship with his ex-father-in-law. Yet, he commits to his insecurities and shortcomings with gusto, particularly when it comes to parenting

"A father," he writes, "is a man who fails every day."

That Chabon does with regret, self-loathing and humour.

In one amusing entry called "D.A.R.E.," Chabon's 13-year-old daughter asks her famous dad about the real meaning behind the Beatles' lyrics "I get high with a little help from my friends."

"Is he talking about getting high high? Or is he just saying that being around his friends makes him feel really, really, like happy?"

"High high," I said.

"Dad, what does it feel like?" his 10-year-old son pipes in.

"It feels pretty good," replies Chabon. "It makes you feel like you're really, uh, being with the people you're with. It makes you insanely hungry and thirsty. It makes you paranoid. It makes your heart race. It makes you sluggish. It makes you think things are really funny that might not actually be that funny at all."

"Like dead bodies?" his six-year-old daughter interjects.

"Uh, yeah, well, no, more like a bad Elvis movie," Chabon explains, scrambling for the words to counsel his inquisitive brood and save his parental hide.

"Parenting has been a fly-by-your-seat operation for me, like everything else in my life," Chabon told CTV.

Being a man with integrity is a failure-strewn journey

"A lot of parenting is just hypocrisy," says the 46-year-old author.

"There's this whole 'Do as I say, not as I do' thing at work. We expect truthfulness and honesty from children without expecting it from ourselves. But, kids are smart. They're watching us and taking notes. To fail to recognize that is ridiculously stupid."

Even when Chabon shamelessly displays his geeky goof-ups, ineptitude never mars these explorations into his life, fame and maleness in a changing world.

No big surprise there.

Chabon has been a golden boy in the book biz ever since his first novel, "The Mysteries of Pittsburgh," became an overnight bestseller in 1988.

Chabon wrote the book as his master's thesis at the University of California, Irvine.

Unbeknownst to him, Chabon's professor sent the manuscript to a literary agent. The book sold immediately, earning Chabon a US$155,000 advance.

"Wonder Boys" (1995), Chabon's next hit, was transformed into a Hollywood movie starring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire.

In 2001 the celebrity author won the Pulitzer Prize for "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay." That win cemented Chabon's transition from literary "It Boy" to heavyweight American author.

"Whatever else I had working for me when my first book was purchased I had luck. The need for luck hasn't diminished, even in today's industry. Would I be successful if I started my career today? It's hard to say," Chabon laughs.

"There are many great writers out there. There's also lot of crap."

(In fact, one of this book's funniest entries is called "The Spendours of Crap." In it, Chabon explains the function of God-awful entertainment in stimulating the imagination of children.)

"Publishers will always stay on the hunt for the next great American novel," says Chabon. "That will never change."