The Treatment

Richard Ford Daniel Menaker is a writer after my own heart and has been for years. His storytelling is useful in the old-fashioned sense. Sometimes it's wistful, even skeptical, but never despairing or even pessimistic. His ironies penetrate and are sharp but don't wound. As a writer he is clever and vigorous about what's funny and always searching for what balm humor can add to the human condition. In this way his novel serves as an elegant instruction kit for how we -- adults, after all -- may make a hopeful, credible peace with life. -- Review