Our Marriage Counselor — Carl Tiktin

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.