Book Doctor Book

Inspired by the frustrations of writer's block, the vagaries of modern romance, and a deep-seated love for reading, The Book Doctor combines urbane, sophisticated, mordantly funny storytelling with tremendous heart.

Smart, independent, quirky, and well-read, Arlette Rosen makes her living helping people write the books they've always dreamed of, and she's quite good at it. She likes this work, likes the freedom of someone else's sentences, likes being able to change, in intuitive ways only she knows, small details here and there. By the time she meets new client Harbinger Singh, she has worked on sixty-four books, chosen from hundreds of submissions. Harbinger Singh makes his living as a tax attorney, but what he really wants to do is write a novel, a grand, sweeping saga he intends to call Hot and Dusty.

While the romance that blooms between these two unlikely lovers is more about longing than lust, it triggers something in each that just might be called hope. With uncompromising wit and a fierce tenderness, Esther Cohen has written a modern-day comedy of manners about relationships, writer's block, and the enduring-if elusive-creative spirit.

Author Biography: Esther Cohen is the author of a previous novel, No Charge for Looking. She lives in New York City with her husband, a documentary film editor, and their teenage son.

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.