Allergy Shots by Robert Litman

This post was originally published on a now-retired blog that I maintained from roughly 2005 to 2013. As a result, there may be some references that seem out of date. 

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A novel of medical suspense by an allergist.

Where did I get this book? Who knows? I think I found it in someone’s office I took over during one of my many steps up the career ladder.

All in all, not a horrible book. It kept my interest in the story long enough for me to get to the end.

But a few things were odd.

The prose was sometimes clumsy.

The protagonist was black and was only, it seemed, allowed to show an interest in black women. We were told, in fact, that Ike was black in a clumsy and rather unnecessary way, and both of the women he slept with in the story were also described as black in an unnecessary way. So, he’s black. So, she’s black. What does that tell us about the characters? Nothing more than saying someone is white, so why tell us at all?

The third thing that was strange was the sex itself, which was also irrelevant except for the titillation factor. Do people really have sex this casually with one another? In fiction I guess they do.

And what’s with the buttocks? Such an odd word and it shows up in two of your scenes. Something you’d like to tell us, doctor?

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This post appeared on Eric Lanke's blog, an association executive and author. You can contact him at eric.lanke@gmail.com.