cover image Milt & Marty

Milt & Marty

Tom Leopold, Bob Sand, . . Virgin, $22.95 (214pp) ISBN 978-1-905264-18-6

TV writers Leopold (Seinfeld , Cheers ) and Sand (Laverne and Shirley , Full House ) reimagine themselves in their wonderfully repugnant fiction debut. By 1968, the infamous comedy writing team of Milt Wagonman and Marty “The 'X' Is Silent” Sloyxne have become two washed-up, obnoxious 70-somethings who “couldn't even get blacklisted” during McCarthyism. When young East Coasters Tom and Bob move to L.A. to launch their writing careers, they encounter Milt and Marty on their first gig—writing for sitcom pilot Give Your Uncle Back His Legs. In a desperate mission to survive in Tinseltown, Milt and Marty attempt to hitch themselves to Tom and Bob's rising star, and the jokes pour out like schmaltz on the borscht belt. As Marty notes: “We're like two spent matches afloat in the crapper of a Beverly Wilshire banquet floor men's room... waiting for the bar mitzvah boy's fat self-conscious uncle... to flush us into the sewers of Beverly Hills.” Page after page of such observations make for an outrageously disturbing debut. (May)