She’s just the prescription for writers’ woes

Book Doctor

A Novel

Esther Cohen

Counterpoint: 252 pp., $23

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“People want to write about everything,” observes Arlette Rosen in “Book Doctor,” Esther Cohen’s comedic novel about the struggles of the writing life and the pursuit of romantic love. “Their great Aunt Margery and the time she hitchhiked across America to see the boy she’d loved in high school, ways they knew for removing gum from a thousand difficult places, plans for peace in Ireland, cookbooks with ginger ale as the primary ingredient. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen.”

Arlette has fallen into the book doctor profession almost by mistake after being asked to help an editor friend clean up a manuscript (“Life and Death: One Prognosis”) that garnered enthusiastic reviews. Now aspiring authors of all stripes appeal to Arlette for help when they’ve failed to write their magnum opus.

She works only with authors who somehow charm her or whose subject matter incites her curiosity, choosing manuscripts often by how the packages felt. “If she could feel something inside the envelope, some sign of life, if the handwriting had a portent to it, if a certain heft was there, or a lightness, or if she just liked the way the envelope looked -- the placement of stamps, the color ink, the texture of the paper -- she’d take it on.”

Much fun is to be found in reading both the bizarre and lackluster query letters Arlette receives, as well as her witty retorts. There’s a pitch for “Mad Is OK and Ancient,” a nonfiction book about anger throughout history; for “The Alzheimer’s Joke Book” with a possible forward by Nancy Reagan; for “Brown Up,” an examination into the varieties of desert lizards and why they’re so adorable.

And there is “How to Make Love to a Man, a Woman or Anything Else!” -- a funny Haggada, a Seder reader with jokes about matzo, bitter herbs and gefilte fish (though the fruit-and-nut mixture haroseth, the aspiring author agrees, might be hard to make funny) -- and “Otto and Me: The True Story of My Happy Marriage (to a Gorilla).”

Harbinger Singh, a tax accountant and lover of computers, is another in a long line of would-be writers to seek Arlette’s help. His reason to write, though, stands out from the crowd: He wants revenge.

His ex-wife Carla is to become the centerpiece of his nascent narrative in which he plans to rewrite their relationship, culminating with her begging for him to come back. The book, Harbinger thinks, might be titled “Wild Taxes” or “Hot and Dusty.”

Arlette is drawn to Harbinger’s passion because she’s in a monotonous dead-end relationship with Jake, a film buff who dresses exclusively in black.

Many of the flaws in their relationship can be traced to Arlette’s intensely private personality and her unwillingness to open herself up to Jake -- or, for that matter, to her own creativity.

Seeing the lengths to which Harbinger is willing to go to regain Carla’s love incites a new hunger in Arlette. She wants to be with someone who’ll sing songs with her, who’ll share his innermost thoughts, who’ll be wild with her.

Maybe, she wonders, Harbinger is just the man.

Arlette agrees to work with Harbinger and though he has no real text prepared, they engage in writing exercises that bring them closer. In doing so, Arlette realizes how desperately she herself wants to write a book but worries that she’s just a wannabe like Jake, who’s been writing a screenplay for years and often talks about “his” movie.

Cohen, who previously wrote “No Charge for Looking,” offers the reader a novel that remains light and comic throughout even as it becomes a meditation on the sometimes boring nature of love and a statement on the importance of creativity in a life.

“The point is not the book but the writing,” Arlette tells Harbinger in a letter she never sends. “Once you are able to make writing a part of your life, and that isn’t easy, your life will be changed.”

Indeed, as Harbinger continues to write, he comes out of his tax-accountancy shell and becomes a more engaging personality, his newfound vibrancy eventually attracting Carla back.

Inspired by Harbinger, Arlette begins to take her own narrative dreams and her desire for intimacy more seriously.

“Book Doctor” is not deep, but it’s a humorous, fun romp through the world of would-be writers and lovers. This is a narrative to remind us of the grace to be found in storytelling and a call to open ourselves up to the tale at hand.

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Bernadette Murphy, a regular contributor to Book Review, is the author of “Zen and the Art of Knitting.”