#MeAsWell

by Peter Mehlman

Arnie Pepper is having the worst day of his life. The Pulitzer-prize winning sports columnist for the Washington Post has lived a thrilling, prestigious and (mostly) blameless existence over nearly four decades of rubbing shoulders with athletic royalty at all the most prestigious sporting events of our times. Then one day, within the confines of an impromptu gathering of fellow reporters, he tosses out a characteristic one-liner. Overheard and subsequently posted on social media, his joke goes viral. The ensuing hurricane of condemnation threatens to take his job and reputation, alienate his daughter, and decimate his obsessively observed inner world.

#MeAsWell is the second novel from Peter Mehlman, an essayist, artist, comic, filmmaker, and longtime writer/producer for the iconic television show Seinfeld. At once surreal and too real, laughable and on point, the novel examines the inner and outer turmoil that results when a well-meaning but iconoclastic public figure, having failed to update his cultural operating system, unwittingly runs afoul of the new rules of woke America.

In everyday interactions, and especially in his popular columns, Pepper’s sense of humor has always been his fortune—the gateway to a comfortable life as a journalist and enriching friendships with everyone from Billy Jean King to Barack Obama. An early proponent of Title IX--and a devoted single father of a daughter--Pepper has long been a champion of women’s sport. But now, despite his best intentions, he finds himself in the eye of a media storm that is turning darker and more dangerous, his life threatened by a hilarious retort—or at least it seemed hilarious at the time.

Early Praise for #MeAsWell

"Mehlman’s narrative is spirited, political, and both hilarious and sadly reflective of the digital culture that can befriend or betray on a whim. A witty, culturally perceptive dark comedy."—Kirkus Reviews

Praise for Peter Mehlman and his first novel, It Won’t Always Be This Great.

“It turns out that not only can Peter Mehlman write funny television, he can write a funny book. Who knew?" ―Julia Louis-Dreyfus, star of Veep and Seinfeld

"Anyone who writes for television gets frustrated that they can't write like Peter Mehlman. Now he's going to make novelists mad too. Mehlman’s writing style is completely unique and creates an intimate bond between the narrator and the reader. You finish the book feeling as though you’ve made a new friend.”― Aaron Sorkin, Academy and Emmy-award winning screenwriter, producer, and playwright, whose works include A Few Good Men, The West Wing, The Social Network, and The Newsroom

Equal parts moral dilemma, subtle social commentary, and journey of self-discovery, Mehlman's tale of a man forced outside the comfort zone of his ‘respectable, decent, low-impact, relaxed-fit, gluten-free world’ is both laugh-out-loud funny and deeply moving.” ―Publishers Weekly

“As the nameless narrator tells his story to a college pal lying comatose in a hospital bed, there are clear echoes of Catcher in the Rye and the inspired nothingness of Seinfeld. Throw in some catch-me-if-you-can themes from one of the greatest Russian novels—Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment—and basketball references with echoes of Updike’s Rabbit Angstrom, and this jokey dark comedy can claim serious literary inspiration.

Genres: Fiction

236 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 18, 2019

About the author

After graduating from the University of Maryland, Peter Mehlman, a New York native, became a writer for the Washington Post. He slid to television in 1982, writing for “SportsBeat with Howard Cosell.” From 1985-90, he returned to forming full sentences as a writer for numerous national publications including The New York Times Magazine, GQ, Esquire, and a multitude of women's magazines due to his advanced understanding of that gender. In 1989, he moved to Los Angeles, where he bumped into Larry David, whom he’d met twice in New York. David, developing “a little show with Jerry Seinfeld,” invited Mehlman to submit a sample script. Having never written one, Mehlman sent a humor piece he’d written for the Times Magazine and got an assignment, which became the first Seinfeld freelance episode, “The Apartment.”

Over the eight-year run of the show, Mehlman rose to executive producer and coined such Seinfeld-isms as “Yada Yada” “spongeworthy,” “shrinkage,” and “double-dipping.”

In 1997, Mehlman joined DreamWorks and created “It’s like, you know…” a scathing look at Los Angeles. In recent years, he has written screenplays, a novel, and humor pieces for NPR, Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times, several of which were published in his collection, Mandela Was Late. In addition, he has also appeared on-camera for TNT Sports and the Webby-nominated “Peter Mehlman’s Narrow World of Sports,” while also starring in his short film Blank, for which he won best writing at the Los Angeles Comedy Festival. He is the author of the short story collection, Mandela Was Late, and the novel, It Won’t Always Be This Great.

He lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

[Gary Shapiro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious, as one would expect of one of the main contributors to Seinfeld, but also brave and moving. Well worth your time!