March 29th, 2002
The American attitude toward therapy is a strange one. Alternately demonized and bragged about, the habit of dealing with problems through a stranger while "riding the couch" has a definite allure to storytellers: To paraphrase Tolstoy, every unhappy person is unhappy in his own way. Still, these stories aren't all chronicles of personal misery; editor Eric Kates did a marvelous job choosing contributors with many different viewpoints. Lorrie Moore's patient drowns her sorrows in Haagen-Dazs. Lawrence Block's troubled "corporate troubleshooter" is having a hard time killing people lately. Of course, the patient isn't always the disturbed party, and his or her problems aren't always the story. It's the patient/therapist dynamic that makes these stories varied, fresh and interesting. The biggest surprise in On The Couch is its sense of humor, which along with the top-notch writing saves this anthology from lapsing into boring self-pity. Instead, it's surprisingly frank and entertaining.
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