Inspired Sleep: A Novel Book

Robert Cohen is indeed a "beautiful sentence writer" as one reviewer notes here. He also has an absolute handle, and a humane one, on what drives us and how we humans think.

In this way Cohen writes gorgeous novels that are fun to read -- they are witty in almost every sentence, but never at the expense of the characters.

I am always surprised that Cohen is not better-known. He crafts fine stories and very interesting novels. For writers who write wittily and sympathetically about our activities here on earth, I'd place him with Jonathan Lethem, Michael Chabon, Deborah Eisenberg, and Ehud Havazelet.

Although his novels are very different from Gary Shteyngart's antic ones, I'd also note similarities there: both are witty, perceptive, and, yes, remain kind to their characters.

One book reviewer said that Cohen brings to life the spirit of Saul Bellow in "Augie March." As a fan of that novel, I do think that Cohen -- like the early Bellow -- writes in a way that exults in the living, whether it is hard or sometimes lovely. Most of the time, even the hard ends up being beautiful in some way.