When All the World's a Page

By ERIKA DREIFUS

Book Doctor
By Esther Cohen
256 pages. Counterpoint. $23

About two years ago the Jenkins Group, Inc., a Michigan publishing-services company,  commissioned a survey that revealed something stunning. Apparently a whopping 81 percent of Americans believed they should write a book. Some might have been able to manage the job on their own. But perhaps others, in pursuit of their quest to tell their stories, would have consulted someone like Arlette Rosen, the protagonist of Esther Cohen's Book Doctor. "For a very reasonable fee," Arlette advertises, "with a guaranteed prompt and gentle reply, I can help you with your book idea."

One aspiring author who seeks her assistance is Harbinger Singh, a self-described "simple Sikh tax lawyer from Queens with an interest in computers, seeking revenge on my one and only ex-wife Carla by putting her into a tightly spangled bright red dress, more or less." That would, of course, be a fictional tightly spangled bright red dress, as Harbinger's novel, which he initially envisions calling Hot and Dusty, is inspired (if that's the proper word) by his relationship with his ex-wife. As the novel (that is to say, Book Doctor) continues, both Harbinger and Arlette find their writing affected by this working relationship, a relationship we watch unfold just as we track the changes in the ongoing pairings between Harbinger and his ex-wife and the Book Doctor and Jake, her boyfriend of three years.

Interspersed throughout the narrative are letters that other hopeful writers send Arlette to introduce themselves and their proposed projects; these provide some of the novel's funniest moments, and very touching ones, too. One of the most amusing comes from "M," who wants to write "a funny Haggadah" and mentions what the book might include: "I'd like to play around with the Four Questions part. Like Four Questions You'd Like to Ask Right Now No Matter What (that may or may not be relevant to the seder, such as: When in the world will this end? Any four could be good here)" and another section on "New Passover Foods. Here we can go wild. We can ask Ben and Jerry for Passover flavors, for instance. Egyptian Date, Red Sea Cherry, Golden Calf Vanilla, Moses Melon." Arlette's replies to these letters are also fun to read. In the case of the Haggadah proposal, she tells "M": "You don't need me. You are all set to go. Publish it yourself. A lot of Haggadah authors do just that. I will buy one."

Although this novel is quite likely to hold special appeal for writers—who can so readily identify with both the painful and pleasurable elements of the writing process it details—it may also frustrate and confuse them. In several respects, one just can't always be certain where the parody ends, and on whom the joke is being played.

For example, much of Arlette's book doctoring seems to focus on character development. In fact, she delivers a lecture to Singh that may sound familiar to many readers-who-are-also-writers:

But we don't know [your characters], or why they are seething. We don't know how tall they are, what they think and do, where they live, what their lives were like before and after their seething. What they eat and think and believe. What they look like. The color and shape of their eyes. How much they sleep. Who their friends are. Where they come from. What happened before the novel began. We have to see them first, to have some idea who they are. Where they come from. What's inside.

Singh chides her: "Don't be so conventional." But sometimes—as with a 250-page novel—the conventions can be worth observing. For some readers, too much will be left unsaid in this book. In fact the character we come to know least thoroughly is the Book Doctor herself. And it's somehow not very satisfying to read the lines the book offers almost as an explanation: "I've never been very good at discussing my own life," Arlette reveals at one point. Or "I am a very private person. I would not allow myself to reveal very much." Or "I find it very hard to talk to Jake directly." Or, in conversation with boyfriend Jake: "It's so funny that we rarely discuss our past[s]."

Some readers may not find that funny at all, but rather frustrating, instead. Similarly, it's odd that the one relative Arlette seems to be close to—her grandmother, Adella—doesn't make an appearance until we're halfway through the book (yes, it's Chapter 18, and that may be significant for a book liberally infused with Jewish motifs, but still….) It's only at that point that we learn that "Arlette's grandmother called early Sunday mornings, usually around eight." If a real-life book doctor got her hands on that chapter you can bet there'd be a suggestion to mention Grandma a little earlier, to weave her into the narrative a bit more smoothly, perhaps even to introduce her during one of the many Sundays that ticked right on by throughout the previous 17 chapters.

And that's part of what is so puzzling about Book Doctor. In the end, perhaps it's all a very cleverly constructed joke, but on whom? On the last page we learn that the novel is—guess what—the book doctor's own longed-for tome. Cliché? Deliberate comment on the process? Something else?

There's considerable charm to this book, but for the writers who may be most drawn to it, the temptation to do some book doctoring of their own may also come into play. The question is whether Cohen intended that to happen or not.