An Almost Life, my new novel

The unglamorous but hilarious truth about a real lawyer's life

I've been a trial lawyer for over two decades and I've always wanted to write a book about what the profession is really like, which is very much unlike the way it's portrayed in most books and movies. So I gave it a shot and now it's being published, which is a nice surprise for an older guy like me who thought he was chained to law for the rest of his life. It's called An Almost Life by Kevin Mednick, The Permanent Press, 238 pp., $28. Available at Amazon here or Barnes and Noble. here.

Mike Samuels is a trial lawyer who will give you a funnier, more human and ultimately more realistic idea of what the practice of law is really all about. The story of his almost life is filled by a domineering secretary, cranky judges, oddball clients, wise guy friends and a big case that may or may not make his year.

I'd like to hear from you either way about the novel. (You can leave a comment below). Here are some of the reviews it has received. I'm lucky enough that the early reviews have been pretty favorable.

From THE KIRKUS REVIEW, October 1, 2007

"A New York trial lawyer who specializes in personal-injury litigation narrates New York attorney Mednick’s fast-paced, entertaining debut novel.

"The former is Mike Samuels: 40-ish, divorced and clinging to loving relationships with his teenaged kids, while exchanging weary witticisms with his super-efficient secretary Alice (think Sam Spade’s Effie) and testing the tight leash on which his girlfriend, Ann-Marie, keeps him. Mike’s expertise is tested (and his life complicated) when he takes on topless dancer Teri Goebel’s suit against the surgeon who botched her breast implants. He also represents luckless Evelyn Walker, the victim of a (literally) hair-raising industrial accident. The novel’s best feature is Mike’s wisecracking voice, which proves most engaging in the novel’s many, many digressions."

From THE INDEPENDENT (a New York newspaper) December 12, 2007

Reviewed by Joan Baum

"Know anybody who’s thinking Law School or who’s recently been graduated but not working yet? Or who is, and is disenchanted? Someone who also has a sense of humor and a couple of days – the holidays would be ideal - to curl up with an engaging debut novel about lawyers and the law that, for all its smart-mouth cynicism – no, cancel that – just because of its smart-mouth cynicism, is as heartwarming as it is instructive?

"If so, then An Almost Life by Kevin Mednick would make a good gift book (of course, you could read it first yourself because everyone at some time consults a lawyer. Some people even make a career of it). The story is at once entertaining and authentic and, in the spirit of the coming new year, encouraging, which is saying a lot for a profession that has repeatedly been identified as, arguably, the lowest on the ethics scale. Even Mednick’s protagonist, the likable, still somewhat idealistic but highly neurotic, self-doubting, self-deprecating Michael Samuels, realizes what an anomaly he is as an “honest lawyer,” though his sharp and savvy best friend Dan, keeps urging him to get real, toughen up. "