#MeAsWell, A Novel

by Peter Mehlman

Overview

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.

“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

Product Details

BN ID:	2940163341177
Publisher:	The Sager Group
Publication date:	09/19/2019
Sold by:	Smashwords
Format:	eBook
File size:	3 MB

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 , and Esquire . In 1989, two years after moving to Los Angeles, he became a writer for the iconic TV show, Seinfeld . Over the eight-year run of the show, Mehlman rose to executive producer and coined such well-known Seinfeld-isms as “spongeworthy,” “shrinkage,” “double-dipping,” and “yada, yada,” the last of which has been included as an entry in the Oxford English Dictionary. In 1997, Mehlman joined DreamWorks and created It’s Like, You Know… a scathing look at life in Los Angeles. In recent years, he has written screenplays, novels, and humor pieces, many of which were collected in his book, Mandela Was Late. Mehlman has appeared on-camera for TNT Sports and the Webby-nominated Peter Mehlman’s Narrow World of Sports. He’s the creator of the lifestyle brand Bravely Oblivious. He lives in Los Angeles.

Editorial Reviews

A novel that capitalizes on an online viral phenomenon and how reckless commentary can be hyped to catastrophic heights.

Former Seinfeld writer/producer Mehlman's (It Won't Always Be This Great, 2015, etc.) book dramatizes a very real and contemporary situation where something as simple as a joke told among friends can be overheard and freely disseminated worldwide. Such is the case for single dad Arnie Pepper, a widowed, 60-year-old Washington Post sports columnist, who has managed to fly under the radar of controversy for the length of his widely respected, nearly four-decade journalism career. That legacy, which includes interactions with O.J. Simpson at the 1984 Olympics, Larry Bird, and Penny Marshall, swiftly fractures when he makes a demeaning verbal faux pas denigrating a male pro basketball player for being on the injured list due to a hysterectomy. After a media agent posts the comment on Instagram, word spreads like wildfire through press outlets, which cry misogyny and demand answers. Public outrage manifests in episodes of what Pepper considers "acidy micro-aggression" from anyone who recognizes him on the street. Falling from grace and watching his back like a modern-day pariah, he attempts to mitigate the situation but groups like the "Radical Masculine Feminists," the gynecological community, and industry contemporaries demand apologies and swift termination from his employer. Pepper's mother, daughter, and ultimately his editor have faith in his good name and ability to rebound from social disgrace with appropriate accountability. Pepper's characterization is wonderfully enhanced courtesy of his italicized thoughts as he grapples with the melodrama suddenly enveloping his life and Pulitzer Prize-winning career. The resultant whirlwind of rumors, hurt feelings, and damaged reputations whips this novel into a frenzy, with Pepper trying to stay afloat in an era one fellow reporter calls "an overzealous age of sexual persecution." Virtually chapterless and told over the course of two eventful days in 2018, 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

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