Book Doctor. Esther Cohen

that burns in even the least creative people. Thoroughly charming.”

      —Joe Queenan, author of Balsamic Dreams and Queenan Country

      “Witty and urbane … the book resembles a pleasant Woody Allen movie, with its New York backdrop and amusing dialogue.”

      —Library Journal

      “It’s a book that provokes questions about our own lives, our dreams, our relationships, the question of why we do the things we do.”

      —Na’Amat Woman

      “This one transcends categories … delightful.”

      —Miami Herald

      “Cohen evokes scenes from the modern life of waxing and waning relationships with understated humor.”

      —The Indian Express

      “This is a wonderfully offbeat novel … It is funny and sad and encouraging, and a terrific contemplation of the process of writing.”

      —The Kingston Observer

      “The book is satire, but never vicious. It’s actually warm and charming. A lesser author would have been unable to walk this tightrope. Cohen does it beautifully.”

      —Lev Raphael, Michigan Public Radio

      Also by Esther Cohen

       No Charge for Looking

       For everyone who’s ever wanted to write a book, and for the many who’ve helped me with this one.

      Current Project: Finishing Autobiography, Jews, Sports, and Weather

      —Bill Scheft, The Daily News

      I used to think words could do anything. Magic, sorcery. Even a miracle. But no. Only occasionally.

      —Margaret Laurence

      Life is God’s novel. Let him write it.

      —Isaac Bashevis Singer

      What Harbinger Singh really wanted was a book. Sometimes, when he was being most honest, he would admit he didn’t care very much about the subject. He wanted a book he had written. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t much care. It could be about bluefish for all it really mattered. Some days though he was more high-minded. He wanted to write a book, or so he’d tell himself, about one critical dimension of life. Love, maybe, or racism, politics or war. On occasion, he imagined all of these unfolding into a great cosmological epic, a very long book, just enough to be considered weighty, with conscious, pyrotechnical prose, characters who talked and sweated elegantly, free spirits who constantly made love with one another inside old red wheel barrows and on moist, green banks of deep lagoons.

      Singh himself was a lover of computers. But he made his living in law. Mostly tax law, though he wrote an occasional will. He didn’t mind taxes, and although he liked wills less, he didn’t dislike them either. He was a hard worker, and could sit in his office for hours on end, engaged in problems replete with cautious details. Taxes, he knew, were a universal problem. He felt that was as close as he could come, in his own way, to truth. As for wills, he told his clients that death told the truth and he was there to help this process along. He enjoyed meetings with clients, enjoyed the chance to ask them personal questions about their lives. And to turn their information into useful statistics.

      He was not a handsome man, but he wasn’t unhandsome, either. His eyes were large and dark. He was often sparsely bearded, a half circle under his chin, a thin U.

      His life was quiet. After a Scotch or two, he would describe it, if only to himself, as unworthy. He felt that destiny had not yet given him his due. His apartment was clean, with reasonable light. He earned sufficient money. He never ran out of toilet paper or soap, and always had enough bottled water. In the living room he’d placed a large rubber plant, green but not overly so, an ugly, quiet plant, never getting in his way. The plant did not make him feel guilty about water. He knew it would survive.

      His divorce had not been hard. His wife, Carla, a lawyer like himself though she called herself attorney, had once specialized in pensions. She drifted away from Harbinger around the time he’d conceded his own unhappiness, three years before. Though he loved her still and he didn’t quite know why.

      They had dinner the first Wednesday of every month, usually steak at a restaurant called Bill’s. Their conversations continued unchanged through the years: health benefits, welfare, diet, dogs, the Democratic Party. She often lectured him about public policy reform. In spite of this, he loved her. His wife was a high official, with offices in Albany and New York City. She was not particularly attractive. He liked looking at her, though, particularly her round bare shoulders, and her long, thin, intelligent hands. She’d liked sex well enough in the beginning so that Harbinger, at first anyway, felt reasonably satisfied. They’d drifted rather than broken. After a while, they’d each said they wanted more. He’d meant he wanted more of her. He never knew what she wanted, because she wouldn’t say.

      He decided he would use his relationship with Carla as the basis for the novel he’d always intended to write. Her name was promising, more promising than her dullish demeanor, her thin brown hair, her elbows so sharp they could hurt, and her breasts that reminded him of two fried eggs without toast. In the novel though, Carla would be transformed into raven-haired Marla. She would be fiery, and consumed. And so too would Harbinger Singh. He decided to call it Hot and Dusty. He was the heat and she was the dust. Thinking about this cheered him.

      BOOK DOCTOR: For a very reasonable fee, with a guaranteed prompt and gentle reply, I can help you with your book idea. Here are some questions I can answer. Is it good? How strong an idea do you have? Does it work? Is it clear? Does it sing? Is your heart involved? How much? What about characters’ names? Are they interesting or believable, like Oblomov, Daedalus, or Captain Queeg? I can help in every category of book, except true crime and romance. I am professional, quick, accurate, and confidential. Arlette Rosen, POB 1000, New York, New York 10036

       1

       earning a living

      Arlette Rosen was the kind of person who earned her living many different ways. Typical of her generation, she fell into life rather than carved it out. A feathery, floating, ageless woman, she had danced in a cage, waited on tables in Spain and Morocco, spent summers in Provincetown and Jerusalem and Ixtapa, taught English, and worked in hotels. She’d had more than one boyfriend with an unpronounceable name. Now she earned her living helping people write their books. She edited those they’d already written, or helped them begin books they felt they wanted to write. Sometimes, they just wanted to visit her on occasion, to talk about books they’d write if they had the time.

      This incidental career began with a friend of Arlette’s from childhood, a neat woman with small golden earrings, an obvious Alice. Alice had a book at the publishing house where she worked which she didn’t have time to edit herself. She asked for help from Arlette, who was then writing articles on nutritious desserts for pets in a magazine called Rod and Dog.

      “Arlette,” Alice said. Her tone was always moderate, considered, fully clear. Unnasal and certain. “You read all the time, I know.” Alice, although she worked in publishing, only read manuscripts. “I wonder,” and here she paused, holding her phone close to her mouth, as though this was a secret, “if you might help me with a fascinating book. The author is well known. It’s a significant subject. Life and Death, more or less. He’s a psychiatrist, with a great deal of recognized insight. What he knows about is the human condition. And more. You won’t be sorry. This isn’t another dull read. That I personally assure you. It’s full of the drama of life,” she added. “And death, of course. Which is really his one true subject. You’ll recognize the name. Harold P. Leventhal. He’s always on