LIT REVIEW: Susan Shapiro's Speed Shrinking

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LIT REVIEW: Susan Shapiro's Speed Shrinking

POSTED: Wednesday, October 28, 2009, 6:55 PM

Filed Under: Arts Books

St. Martin's, 308 pp., $23.99, Aug. 4

Susan Shapiro's fictional debut, Speed Shrinking, proves that the memoirist and New York University instructor has a knack for cross-genre storytelling.

The novel, a semi-autobiographical twist of Shapiro's life, finds bestselling self-help author Julia Goodman falling to pieces after her entire support system leaves town. All at once, the New Yorker's husband heads to Los Angeles for a work-related trip; her newlywed best friend, Sarah, moves to Ohio; and, worst yet, Dr. Ness, her therapist, crutch and major lifeline, tells her he's moving to Arizona and will only drop by the Big Apple every few months.

Our protagonist transforms into the 'acclaimed self-help guru who suddenly can't help herself.' Julia binge eats on cupcakes and other sugary goodness to deal with the loneliness, leaving her to figure out how she'll lose weight and piece herself together in time from her Today Show appearance to promote Food Crazy, a book which, ironically, deals with food addictions.

To accomplish this, she decides to find a new therapist. Julia goes through eight therapists in an eight-day period ' among them, Dr. Cigar, a man who, as his name implies, smokes cigars several times a day, and therapist No. 7, who has a ferret caged in the waiting room ' until she's had so much therapy from so many different approaches, she manages to pick herself up and roll with the punches.

The first person-narrative is overloaded with dialogue, sometimes going on for three pages with little or no exposition. This structure is anything but tedious and, in fact, makes time fly by while reading. The story as a whole is told with such vivid detail, pains and humor that it's easy to follow and easy to love.

Julia Goodman is Shapiro's Carrie Bradshaw; through her main character, Shapiro shares a vulnerable part of her life, and she does it with brutal honesty. Julia is flawed, yet she's driven to fix herself completely. Her reliance on therapy is proof alone that therapy has become an easy escape.

The need to get help ' and the lengths she's willing to go to accomplish that need ' counteracts any codependency issues Julia suffers from. (Which is possibly why's she's so into the self-help subset of nonfiction.) Her journey over the course of the book is one that will keep readers glued to their seats, whether they're at home or in their therapist's waiting room.

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