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Book Doctor: A Novel
by Esther Cohen
Available from Amazon
$14.95
|
Features
Paperback: 272 pages
Publisher: Counterpoint May 9, 2006
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1582433240
ISBN-13: 978-1582433240
Product Dimensions:
7.8 x 3.3 x 0.7 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
From Publishers Weekly
A nutty Queens tax lawyer-cum-fledging author puts himself in the hands of an emotionally conflicted book doctor in this talky, wistful novel by Cohen (No Charge for Looking). For Harbinger Singh, still in love with his ex-wife, Carla, writing a novel about his recent divorce is delicious revenge. For Arlette Rosen, ensconced in a chilly three-year relationship, doctoring other people's stories is a welcome distraction. Arlette's boyfriend, Jake, is "in film," wears only black and prefers to observe life rather than get too involved with it. Harbinger, in contrast, is playful, childlike and passionate. As Arlette tries to shape his unwieldy, sexy, autobiographical material into readable form, she finds herself being sucked into his novel as a fictional persona. At the same time, she recognizes that she wants to be in love with Jake, not merely find him adequate. Harbinger, too, is transformed by his work with Arlette, and Carla is shocked to discover that he is no longer the "dull, brown-suited fool [she] married and divorced." Cohen's novel is a gentle treatment of fragile relationships, humorously punctuated by the weird queries Arlette receives from struggling writers ("Dear Arlette, I'm writing to ask you for inspiration. Is it possible to send?"). Fluent, funny and true, it will particularly appeal to writers and those who must suffer them.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
New Yorker Arlette Rosen, the charmingly wistful, funny, and arty yet cautious narrator of Cohen's tender satire, never intended to become a book doctor. But after she helps a friend and salvages a manuscript titled Life and Death: One Prognosis, she never lacks for clients. In fact, much of this sweetly clever comedy consists of the letters Arlette receives from eccentric, arrogant, clueless, unctuous, and desperate wannabe writers hoping that she will be able to help them write everything from Holocaust novels to an Alzheimer's joke book to an Armenian mystery series featuring Dikran the Dick. Arlette's most intriguing client is Harbinger Singh, an unhappily divorced tax attorney who wants to write a steamy revenge novel about his ex-wife. But Harbinger is an irrepressibly ebullient fellow, the exact opposite of Arlette's tense boyfriend, Jake. Will Arlette write her own novel? Will she find true love? Will Harbinger win his wife back and forget about writing Wild Taxes? Cohen's send-up, cousin to Eric Kraft's Passionate Spectator [BKL Jl 04], will delight all book lovers and fans of screwball comedies. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Reader Reviews
This review is from: Book Doctor: A Novel (Hardcover)
They say everyone has a book in them. I doubt it, but everyone seems to believe it's true and many of these people contact Arlette Rosen for help turning their mush into mansucripts and their manuscripts into saleable books. The novel charts the comic and suprising relationship between Arlette and Harbinger Singh, a tax lawyer who's a tuneful, oddball determined to use a book to either win back his estranged wife--or smite her. His and Arlette's relationship gets very complicated very quickly and takes surprising turns. Now, the book is punctuated with mock query letters from a wide variety of wanna-be writers and though they are often ludicrous, the book never takes cheap shots. Here's where the author's great success lies: she can mock silly, self-absorbed people with loony ideas for books without mocking their very real desire to communicate, to express themselves, to share ideas with the world. The book is satire, but it's never vicious, it's actually warm and charming. A lesser author would have been unable to walk this tightrope, but Cohen does so beautifully.
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Book Doctor: A Novel
by Esther Cohen
Available from Amazon
$14.95
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