“Denny Hastert Grips My Balls” - Eisenstadt duo predicts scandal

Look what showed up in my in-box:

For Immediate Release - October 28, 2015 -

“Denny Hastert Grips My Balls”
Filmmaker/Authors Predicted Hastert Scandal Six Years Ago

West Hollywood, California  –  On the day that former House Speaker Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty to paying hush money for “misconduct” as a high school wrestling coach, the authors of a satirical novel that predicted similar behavior in a chapter titled “Denny Hastert Grips My Balls,” announced that their publisher has added a second printing of their critically-acclaimed book.  The 2009 Farrar, Straus, Giroux release, “I Am Martin Eisenstadt: One Man’s (wildly inappropriate) Adventures with the Last Republicans,” by Dan Mirvish and Eitan Gorlin, also predicted the fracturization of the Republican Party, and scandals involving David Petraeus, Elliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner, Ehud Olmert, Pamela Geller, Sarah Palin and Paris Hilton.

“My clients, the Eisenstadt duo, have nailed it again.  They can now claim to be the first political pundits to predict Denny Hastert’s fall from grace stemming from his wrestling past,” said Mirvish and Gorlin’s publicist Eli Perle, of Provocation Entertainment. “If you want to understand the history, present and future of the Republican party, this is the book for you.”  The Hastert references, entirely fictional at the time, included a private sauna in his Capitol Hill office where he held private meetings and gave inappropriate massages.

“Of course, whatever Hastert’s real behavior might have been is regrettable and reprehensible, and we wish closure and justice for any of his victims,” said Mirvish. “Whether the FBI had read the book and was inspired to investigate, we can’t know for sure,” added Gorlin   “We’re very excited that FSG is giving the novel its second printing. We couldn’t have asked for a better partner,” said Mirvish.

To quote one passage from the Hastert chapter in the book: “Next thing I knew I was in a tabletop stance with all of Denny’s body weight applied against my chest. ‘Ha, ha!’ barreled Denny. ‘I still got it. Join me for a sauna?’ ‘As soon as you let go of my balls.’ We laughed again. The ice had been broken. I was relieved. His massive, moisturizer-soft hand was still gripping my testicles.”

“I Am Martin Eisenstadt” (ISBN: 0865479143) was named the #3 Book of Year by the Washington Monthly Magazine (2009), and Eisenstadt himself was Time Magazine’s #8 Fleeting Celebrity of 2008. The book itself was part of a larger transmedia project that included TV, film and webseries elements, which saw Mirvish and Gorlin screen at the HBO Comedy Arts Festival and the Montreal Just for Laughs Festival. Other critical appraisal for the novel:

“Martin Eisenstadt’s new memoir…is essential reading for all political junkies.” - Ken Silverstein, Harper’s

“Consistently funny…Eisenstadt’s creators are shrewd observers of Washington, and they delight in sending up its countless absurdities, I intend it as real praise when I say that ‘I Am Martin Eisenstadt’ is the best fake memoir of the campaign season.” - Joshua Green, Atlantic Monthly

“Washington has no shortage of pundits who pretend to know what they’re talking about. But there’s a real dearth of pretend pundits — and even fewer who will talk about why they’re pretending in the first place.” - Rick Klein, ABC News

Mirvish and Gorlin are both award-winning filmmakers. Co-founder of the Slamdance Film Festival, Dan Mirvish is currently in pre-production on the film “Bernard and Huey,” with a screenplay by Oscar/Pulitzer winner Jules Feiffer.  Eitan Gorlin continues to write scripts for film and television and is in pre-production on his latest independent feature, “Burbank Caviar.”

For more information or interview requests for Mirvish or Gorlin, please contact Eli Perle at Provocation Entertainment at[email protected] or 323-863-3297.  For inquiries regarding Farrar Straus Giroux, please contact Sarita Varma at 212-206-5327 or [email protected].