 Kirshenbaum's "The Scenic Route" was published in 2009.The novel is the story of a divorced and recently unemployed woman who travels to Europe and has an affair with a married man.It has been described as “a refreshingly gimlet-eyed examination of memory” and “a cross-cutting investigation into the horrors of the 20th century.”

Richard Howard wrote of her, “This author is indeed a humorist, even a comedian, a sort of stand-up tragic."