Seinfeldia by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

Twenty-seven years ago, NBC aired the premiere of a show called The Seinfeld Chronicles. The premise was intended to be a look at how a comedian gets his material from his everyday life. With the help of the talented writers and performers, it evolved into the Seinfeld we know and love that influenced situation comedies for decades to come, and the book Seinfeldia tells the tale.

The book gets its title from the idea that the show exists somewhere between reality and fiction. It introduced many characters that borrow their names and/or personalities from real-life counterparts. Of course there is the character of Jerry Seinfeld, played by comedian-turned-actor Jerry Seinfeld. But almost as famous is the fictional Jerry's neighbor Cosmo Kramer (Michael Richards) who was based on Kenny Kramer, a friend of co-creator Larry David. And the character of George Costanza (Jason Alexander) was based on David himself, though Elaine (Julia Louis-Dreyfuss) was an amalgamation of several women who Seinfeld and David knew, including Carol Leifer who would join the writing staff.

The Seinfeld writers got almost all their story ideas from their real lives or from current events, which kept the show relatively grounded and timely despite the comedic exaggeration. Once Jason Alexander protested that nobody would handle a situation the way his character George was meant to, and Larry David fired back that that's exactly what he did when it happened to him. Near the middle of each season David was always reluctant to keep the series going for another year, because it was so hard to come up with fresh new ideas.

Armstrong is clearly a big fan of the show and delighted in being able to interview some of the creative people involved in it. She can't help but describe several famous episodes' plots when they are relevant to the element being described in the book. For example when profiling a specific writer she'll give synopses of the episodes written by him or her. In a few instances, her eagerness has her repeating an anecdote that was already mentioned a few chapters early, and sometimes she presents events out of chronological order for effect, which I didn't think was always the right way to tell a non-fiction account. However, her enthusiasm and research make for an entertaining and informative read.

This is a very comprehensive book, going from the show's infancy all the way to describing what the cast has done recently (yes, including Michael Richards' unfortunate outburst of anger) to the way people are still being influenced by the show. There are several pages about the @Seinfeld2000 Twitter feed (still going as of last month) that began as a frustrated parody of @SeinfeldToday (defunct as of 2015). Since it's still running in syndication and was recently acquired by Hulu, Seinfeld is sure to be enjoyed for generations. And Seinfeldia is overall a very good look at that show that was anything but "about nothing".