Arlette Rosen is a quirky kind of hero­ine. A for­mer Eng­lish major, Arlette helps wannabe authors write the book they would like to write, if she accepts them as a client. Book Doc­tor is filled with the amus­ing let­ters sent to Arlette ask­ing for her ser­vices and her replies. The truth is that Arlette is her­self a frus­trat­ed writer, unable to trans­mit the excite­ment she feels about her ten years in Jerusalem to a sto­ry that would con­vey the yearn­ing, dra­ma, peo­ple and col­or she wish­es to bring to a read­er. Instead she makes end­less lists of words and ideas, snatch­es of descrip­tion, yet not of dia­logue. Arlette is too ten­ta­tive and emo­tion­al­ly frozen. Her lover, Jake, is also a patho­log­i­cal­ly con­strained man unable to write his elu­sive screen­play. Words and action that would con­vey the dra­ma and excite­ment he yearns for elude him. Enter Arlette’s col­or­ful client, Har­bin­ger Singh. Although he earns his liv­ing as a ​“tax man,” and wants to write a book, any book, that would impress his exwife, he is as free with his emo­tions and imag­i­na­tion as Arlette and Jake are fet­tered. He breaks into pop­u­lar songs at any moment. Arlette finds her­self more alive in his com­pa­ny. Unre­strained by a sin­gle plot, by a nar­ra­tive, by any­thing resem­bling the build­ing blocks of nar­ra­tive, his genius is that he com­pels Arlette to want more than the shad­ow love affair she has endured and, it is implied, to lib­er­ate her writ­ing. The stu­dent has become the teacher, but the teacher has also freed her stu­dent from his sense of infe­ri­or­i­ty. Cohen’s writ­ing style is sub­tle. Her descrip­tions are of the essence and her char­ac­ters are dis­tinct­ly them­selves. This is a sto­ry that devel­ops incre­men­tal­ly, demands some patience, but rewards the read­er with moments of charm and satisfaction.