The EXTRA MAN

Rating:
Summary: Tender & often hilarious portrayal of sexual confusion
Review: "The Extra Man" is Ames' follow-up to his debut novel, "I Pass Like Night," which covers some of the same territory, but is not as detailed as this. Here, Louis Ives, a sexually confused school teacher, is fired from his job following a comic encounter with a female colleague's bra. Determined to start life anew, he moves to NYC into the claustrophobic, roach-infested sty of an apartment with Henry Harrison, a misanthropic elder who makes his way through life as a gentleman escort for woman in high society. While in New York, Louis succumbs to the temptations and mystique of transvestite hookers in seamy Times Square, all the while cultivating his relationship with Henry, who serves so very well as the father figure Louis has always craved. "The Extra Man" is eminently accessible, and filled with honest, frenetic, and ribald writing reminiscent of Philip Roth and Paul Rudnick. I've never read a novel quite like this.Throughout, I rooted for both Louis and Henry, who became, for me, the quintessentail post-modern "odd couple." "The Extra Man" is as touching as it is funny.

Rating:
Summary: great comic novel
Review: After reading "Wake Up, Sir" by the same author I got this earlier novel. And it's another glorious funny read. We, as lovers of books, will be blessed if Mr. Ames chooses to continue writing novels in this style. I am a big fan of Peter De Vries, Thomas Berger, and other comic novels; so a high five to Jonathan Ames.

Rating:
Summary: A surprisingly charming story...
Review: After reading Ames's hilarious collection of memoirs "What's Not to Love?", I was curious to discover how well his fiction would compare. I've got to say that I was not disappoint. This novel, while maintaining the offbeat humor of Ames's essays, is surprisingly deep, tender, and charming. "The Extra Man" proved to me that Ames is much more than just a comic writer... he's a creative and moving one as well. This may be an admittedly awkward hybrid of vastly dissimilar authors, but "The Extra Man" struck me as a lovely combination of Fitzgerald and John Kennedy Toole. I loved this novel, and I cannot wait for Ames to publish fiction again.

Rating:
Summary: Kinky Klassic
Review: Boy am I glad I picked up "Extra Man" before anything else by Jonathan Ames. Struck by his work for the New York Press, I finally found this book secondhand and it's a classic! Ames has a very distinctive and winning voice and his New York is a perfect balance of charm, chaos and perversion. Unfortunately, Ames tends to recycle the best bits in his work, but what incredible bits! His great aunt should be bronzed and put in Central Park as an unforgettable New York character. She needs a book of her own, Jonathan!

Rating:
Summary: Genius!
Review: Hey,what country and
/or what century this Henry believes to live (if you can call it living)in?"Women should not go to school?" "the problem of homosexuality?". Surely this man has problems, even bigger than his clumsy would-be-drag-queen-friend. What a sorry flop of a book!

Rating:
Summary: Best Book of Last 10 Years
Review: It's a shame so few readers out there no of the modern day Roth, a mister Jonthan Ames. If you are anyone with a sense of humor, and not some annoying intellectual who sits around adult eductation writing courses preaching the importance of boring description words, this is a MUST READ. A shame Nick Hornsby has cornered the market on 1st person male neuroses, because Ames is more inventive, writes hysterical dialogue, and creates characters more memorable than anything i've read or seen on the big screen in a long, long time. So read this book, and you'll never look at a transexual the same way again!

Rating:
Summary: A wonderful new book
Review: Jonathan Ames' latest novel is a marvelously entertaining and lovingly crafted jem. Ames' feat is one of dazzling intelligence and dexterity. Ames glides with ease as he bridges the troubling, unbridled honesty of contemporary fiction to the sophistication and wit of a lost generation. Gifted with the dissecting eye of the great humorists, and an uncanny willingness for self-examination, Ames is painfully funny. That is the simple fact of the matter. Funny. Yet the book exceeds the mere comic novel. It is a work whose writing touches the bedazzled longings of Fitzgerald and the needle point portraiture of Flaubert. The story fascinates with the deliciousness of a roman a clef and the promised intimacy of a hidden diary. The books' greatest accomplishment, however, is Ames' ingeniously drawn characters. Heartbreakingly funny and generously imbued with the eccentricities of life, upon discovering them, they will surely remain old and cherished friends forever. Like findi! ng a exotic lagoon, take pause and relax in this novel's wonderfully buoyant and delightfully dangerous waters.

Rating:
Summary: I would have given it six stars, had there been the option
Review: Quite simply this is the best novel I have ever had the experience of reading. I think it is the main character that I love so much. I can not relate to him but he is dangerously human. Many books that I read lack real characterisitcs in thier chraracters but this one has real thoughts and quirks. I could go on forever I suppose but YOU should just stop reading the reviews and buy the damn book so that Jonathan Ames can eat.

Rating:
Summary: Most Overlooked Book of past 10 years
Review: Reading this brilliant novel, I can't help but thinking what a shame it is the author remains largely unknown. Part Fitzgerald/part Bukowski, Ames is a master of noticing 1st person male neuroses but and is as inventive with his characters and dialogue as any modern out there! Aone with a sense of humor needs to read this!!! Hysterically funny this is a book you'll read in one sitting, not because of simplistic style, but because it's that damn good!!! Oh, and you'll never look at a transexual the same way again.