The Art of Fine Whining Or How Lori Lew Wrote Her Own Fortune Cookie

About the Book

The heroine, Lori Lew, begins her journey as a doormat.  This 5’12” Chinese woman, with flaming red hair, is oblivious to the hurtful antics of her family, job, and boyfriend.  Her life does not work!  Her life report card would have straight Ds with a few Fs.

Lori like Rodney Dangerfield, gets no respect from her parents and siblings.  She is accosted by street kids.  She has a bait-and-switch, spy operative boyfriend.  She has a racist boss.  She is constantly stopped by a policeman at every turn.  Being Lori is no fun.

Running an errand her parents starts Lori’s epiphany.  She notices a shop that seemingly sells fine wine.  However, keeping with the quirky nature of this novel, the “h” has fallen from the sign.  It is really a whine studio.  Signing up for an Art of Fine Whining Workshop, Lori learns to punctuate her communication with effective shrill tones, commanding body postures, and plaintive words.

In hilarious scenes, Lori transforms her life.  She strikes back with whining vengeance at all who have mistreated her.  Her life report card magically turns to As.  School is finally out.

About the Author

Lorraine Lum Calbow loves to whine and according to her coauthor, prone to redundancy—not so, not so.  Like Lori, she has worked steadily on transforming herself.  She values laughter as a path to truth.  Her mission is to be an instrument of hope in support of the inner life through speaking, writing, and teaching.

Neil Weiner is a psychologist in search of a novel.  His life parallels the character in this book by his love of quirky circumstances and illogic.  He wrote this book with the coauthor on a whim and is going out on a limb with the story.  His resume is not relevant to this creation, but his name is.