Someone Will Be With You Shortly: book review

 

Someone Will Be With You Shortly by Lisa Kogan

When you read a book like this you will be influenced to like or dislike the book based on whether you like, or can at least relate to, the narrator.  I want to start by admitting that I did not like or relate to Lisa Kogan.  She assumes that everyone is a New Yorker with New Yorker sensibilities. Maybe I have an unreasonable distain for that sort of ethnocentric world view, but, there you have it.

So I'm not going to rave about the book.  But, I want to say a bit about the book apart from the author, because you might be a reader who feels differently.  She did draw me in from the start and I did find myself turning back to the book in spare moments—it was easy to finish the book and I enjoyed her prose, even when she annoyed me.  She is easy to read because the words seem to flow effortlessly.  It's not that easy to do, and I admire that facility. 

She aims to be funny.  She's sort of a middle aged female Andy Rooney.  But at some point in the book she surprised me with a vivid and disturbing health revelation that caused me to pass out in empathy.  So, the writing impressed me even though the narrator didn't.  If you aren't put off by the mid-life New York single mom thing, you might want to give this book a go.