Meiselman is put-upon. Everything and everyone in his world is bent on humiliating and belittling him, so he plots his revenge. His day is coming. Or so he thinks. And, to Meiselman, it is only his own thoughts that count. The hero of Avner Landes’s hilarious debut novel, Meiselman: The Lean Years (Tortoise Books), is an aggravating, ridiculous being. He’s no one you’d want to know, but he’s a lot of fun to laugh at. There are even moments when the odd reader might find some of Meiselman’s shenanigans familiar, but those moments are best not admitted to. Best to keep them to oneself, or learn to do the opposite. Because if there’s a chance to get things wrong, Meiselman inevitably will. It’s his superpower.
Meiselman is the butt of every joke and barely tolerated by those closest to him, but somehow, I couldn’t wait to see what he’d ruin next. By grounding him in a real time and place, Landes makes the story of a small man’s comeuppance compelling. The town of New Niles, just north of Chicago, is likely a stand-in for Landes’s hometown, Skokie, Illinois. Meiselman’s ancestral allegiance to the White Sox—demonstrated by ritual morning box score checking, as well as regular TV viewing—is in line with the traditions of many local communities, as they moved from the city to the suburbs. The White Sox are his father’s team from when he lived on the south side, so they become the son’s team in the northern suburbs.
