The Book Doctor
Esther Cohen


Hardcover, 304pp
ISBN: 1582433232
Pub. Date: January 2005
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Barnes & Noble Sales Rank: 107,209

"Everyone wants to write a book. Arlette Rosen knows that and earns her living helping strangers with their book ideas: books about Derrida and dieting, personal histories and Armenian detectives, books about psychic exercises, Alzheimer's jokes, and of course, an infinite number of books about the details of love. Arlette Rosen loves books. She always has. She thinks she knows a good book from a bad one and believes that all writers should aim to be James Joyce, or Proust, or at least not forgotten too quickly." "Enter Harbinger Singh. An unusual hero in a brown wool suit that doesn't quite fit, Singh earns his living as a tax lawyer. He enjoys his job, making meticulous columns of numbers day in and day out, parsing people's lives into numbers. Still in love with his ex-wife, a public policy lawyer named Carla, Singh wants to win her back. And he also wants revenge. He decides the path back to Carla is through writing a book, maybe called Hot and Dusty (he'd be the heat, she'd be the dust). All he needs is help with the actual writing." "Arlette Rosen and Harbinger Singh meet and enter each other's lives in unalterable ways, ways that form the unusual path Book Doctor takes. It is a path full of books, sex, movies, love, music, and continual revelation." Inspired by the frustrations of writer's block and the vagaries of modern romance, the result is a surprising combination of tremendous heart and urbane, sophisticated, mordantly funny storytelling.

FROM THE CRITICS
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. Agent, Betsy Lerner at the Gernert Company. (Feb.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information. the action in its tracks. Arlette herself observes that it's "easier to criticize people who were tryingthan to write herself," but doesn't save Cohen's novel from failing to become more than the sum of its parts.

Author tour; Agent: Betsy Lerner/Gernert Company