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Our Marriage Counselor
Jonathan Meltzer, a marriage counselor at the Jamaica, Queens Family Center, falls in love with the wife of a married couple he is counseling. The husband, Thaddeus Carmichael, almost immediately discerns what is going on and decides to encourage a romance between his beautiful wife, Beverly, and Jonathan. Thaddeus wants to catch them doing something so that he can sue the hell out of the Jamaica Family Center and collect a huge financial settlement.
Jonathan further complicates his life by letting his infatuation for Beverly become known to his super-acerbic girlfriend, Arlene, during a fuzzy pot-filled interlude. Meanwhile, Jonathan's new-age shrink, Timothy Mitchell, in-between his own breakdowns, advises Jonathan to go right ahead and do what he has to do.
In addition to being a very funny novel, Our Marriage Counselor explores ethnic issues in a completely open, honest, and frank light. The novel plays around with normally heavy themes without itself being heavy in the least.
Jonathan further complicates his life by letting his infatuation for Beverly become known to his super-acerbic girlfriend, Arlene, during a fuzzy pot-filled interlude. Meanwhile, Jonathan's new-age shrink, Timothy Mitchell, in-between his own breakdowns, advises Jonathan to go right ahead and do what he has to do.
In addition to being a very funny novel, Our Marriage Counselor explores ethnic issues in a completely open, honest, and frank light. The novel plays around with normally heavy themes without itself being heavy in the least.
232 pages, Hardcover
Published February 28, 2017
186 people want to read
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February 12, 2017
Black, white, Jewish, Christian, rich man, poor man, beggar man and thief all play their parts in Carl TikTin’s Our Marriage Counselor. The novel explores stereotypes, male and female, race and faith, in a complex mix of tortured relationships where neither reader nor character can accurately guess what the right answers will be. A counselor might fall for the wife’s seductive charms, while the husband seduces another woman. Meanwhile the reader is invited to see events through the eyes of each, gaining insight into their public and private lives and intentions. Accidental discoveries and deliberate misleadings combine until more than one marriage or soon-to-be-marriage could lie on the line. More than one career as well.
The story’s told with unsparing detail, anatomical scenes of seduction, pitch-perfect self-analytical dialog, much psychology, and the convincing but not always pleasing voices of far from perfect protagonists. Seemingly the tale of a fractured marriage, the novel soon justifies its title by switching into the story of a counselor. A smoothly convincing sense of place combines with abrasively real characters. Awkward moments, occasional pathos, and sharply observed comedy tell an unflinching tale of modern life—though the reader might flinch. It’s darkly humorous, starkly real, fiercely absorbing and somehow, oddly satisfying by the time it kvetchingly ends. Broken people still have worthwhile futures, and fractured futures can still be worth the pain.
Disclosure: I was given a preview edition and I offer my honest review.
The story’s told with unsparing detail, anatomical scenes of seduction, pitch-perfect self-analytical dialog, much psychology, and the convincing but not always pleasing voices of far from perfect protagonists. Seemingly the tale of a fractured marriage, the novel soon justifies its title by switching into the story of a counselor. A smoothly convincing sense of place combines with abrasively real characters. Awkward moments, occasional pathos, and sharply observed comedy tell an unflinching tale of modern life—though the reader might flinch. It’s darkly humorous, starkly real, fiercely absorbing and somehow, oddly satisfying by the time it kvetchingly ends. Broken people still have worthwhile futures, and fractured futures can still be worth the pain.
Disclosure: I was given a preview edition and I offer my honest review.
Displaying 1 of 1 review