Mandela Was Late traverses the inner universe of a satiric genius who maybe should be getting out of the house a little more often. Wrapped in his cocoon of Hollywood residuals, battling his own (mounting?) foibles day by day, former Seinfeld writer/producer Peter Mehlman somehow manages to see the world a little more clearly than the rest of us.
Ride along through the arc of time drawn by six separate moving violations; only in L.A. can you mark life’s mileposts by the traffic citations you receive. Share the thrill of being nominated for an Emmy, and the agony of not winning… early in the evening. Meet a fictive pundit who becomes famous for publishing blank space; a detective who is ready to reopen the O.J. Simpson case and bust it wide open; a parole officer responsible for the newly won freedom of Nelson Mandela; and a Philip Roth who lengthens his literary career by resorting to ‘roids. Go “star trekking” across the urban wilds of Manhattan, hunting celebrity big game; dodge potholes along a memory lane that feels very familiar in spots and bizarrely antic in others; and remember where you were the first time you heard that infamous number… 69. Read and laugh and shake your head. Nothing is sacrosanct, including other people’s kids.
“Mandela Was Late will make you laugh and you will find more than once you can relate to his stories in a “yeah that happened to me” or “yeah I feel the same” kind of way. It was a true pleasure to get a firsthand glimpse into the mind of this master of satire. Keep writing Mr. Mehlman; we are waiting for more.” –Jaime Martinetion, TheCelebrityCafe.com

Mandela Was Late: Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment

Humor & Entertainment

Mehlman, Peter

Humor

CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

"In the crushing complacency of suburbia, mid-life crises pop in unannounced on men’s lives. For one Long Island podiatrist, it takes an impromptu act of vandalism just to make him aware of his own being. Walking home in the sub-zero wind chill of a Friday night, he stumbles on a bottle of horseradish and mindlessly hurls it through the window of a popular store selling clothes to over-sexed tweens. This one tiny, out-of-character impulse turns his life upside-down, triggering waves of terrifying fear, crooked cops, and charges of anti-Semitism.The story is told by this same podiatrist, an endearingly wide-eyed and entirely nameless narrator, to what he regards as the perfect audience: a comatose college friend. Yet, our narrator’s most unique quality lies simply in his glowing love for his wife Alyse, the girl of his dreams whom he met in college and still can’t quite believe he managed to marry. She is the mother of his two children, Esme and Charlie, who are just starting to come into their own minds and experiencing their first encounters with prejudice.Prior to the bottle-throwing incident, our narrator had just enough going on in his own life to keep him interested. Now friends and neighbors push his intrigue-filled existence into wildly unpredictable places, especially nineteen year old Audra Uziel, a long-time patient who’s brilliant, rebellious, and sexy, with a taste for happily married men.And oh: Audra also happens to be the daughter of Nat Uziel, self-proclaimed community patriarch whose store window the infamous horseradish bottle demolished. Always on the lookout for anti-Semitism, Nat doesn’t know the true culprit but doesn’t let that stop him from loudly whipping his world into a frenzy, forcing our narrator into hiding in plain sight.Pushed to the edge by his own desires, despairs, and disappointments, our narrator is about to find out what it’s like to become a criminal, and what his crucifyingly dull neighborhood looks like in the midst of continuing controversy.

It Won't Always Be This Great

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire

Bancroft Press

#MeAsWell, A Novel

The Sager Group LLC

Mandela Was Late (Black & White Edition): Odd Things & Essays From the Seinfeld Writer Who Coined Yada, Yada and Made Spongeworthy a Compliment

The Sager Group

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