What is the author's style in Someone to Talk To by Deborah Eisenberg?

Though “Someone to Talk To” is by no means a comedy, Eisenberg uses humor throughout to leaven its weighty themes. Sometimes the humor is more subtle, as in her wry description of Shapiro's piano students: “startlingly untalented children who at best thought of the piano as a defective substitute for something electronic.” In her description of the relentlessly chipper Caroline, she writes, “He'd once overheard her saying thank you to a recorded message.” Later, Eisenberg describes Shapiro's performance of the concerto, once hailed as “affirming,” as “a great, indestructible, affirming block of suet.”