Everything Hurts

Letterman writer Scheft skewers physical and emotional pain with a mercilessly comic touch and a bit of poignancy. Phil Camp is an accidental guru who wrote a farcical self-help book under the name Marty Fleck as a joke—he swears—to pay off his divorce settlement. But years have passed, and people still read Fleck’s advice as if it’s the real thing. Phil, meanwhile, is limping into middle age with an excruciating, undiagnosable leg pain that his own self-help guru tells him is all in his head. Even while trying to lose the limp, woo his guru’s daughter, pour out his troubles in absurd therapy sessions and confront the antagonism he has with his right-wing radio talk-show host half-brother, Phil maintains his ability to quip and deliver one-liners. But more important, his journey to avoid bodily discomfort leads him to some less corporeal truths about his life—and a reassessment of Marty Fleck. Despite the book’s sometimes overly involved asides and flashbacks, Phil is a wonderful protagonist, and Scheft’s biting wit coexists nicely with the undercurrent of uplift. (Apr.)