Synopses & Reviews
Jonathan Ames, whose debut novel
I Pass Like Night was enthusiastically praised by Philip Roth and Joyce Carol Oates, has followed up with a brilliant and comic second novel.
Louis Ives, the narrator of The Extra Man, fancies himself a young gentleman fashioned after his heroes in the books of F. Scott Fitzgerald. He dresses the part -- favoring neckties, blue blazers, and sport coats. But he also has a penchant for women's clothing, a weakness that causes him to lose his job as a teacher at a Princeton day school after a bizarre incident involving a colleague's brassiere. Thrust out of Princeton, he heads to New York where he rents a cheap room in the madly discombobulated apartment of Henry Harrison, a failed but brilliant playwright who dances alone to Ethel Merman records, sneaks into Broadway shows, and performs with great style the duties of a walker -- an escort for the rich widows of the Upper East Side.
The two men, separated in age by more than forty years, develop a relationship that is irascible mentor and eager apprentice, and they form a bond the depths of which neither expected. But Louis, when he's not with Henry, has fascinations that lead him to an unusual community on the fringes of the sex world of Times Square. He develops a secret life there, which he fears will be his undoing and which he must keep hidden from Henry at all costs.
A hilarious yet moving story about friendship and longing, The Extra Man is an original and unforgettable novel by one of America's most talented young writers.
Review
Rick Moody author of Purple America Jonathan Ames has always been one of my favorite contemporary writers, both for his limpid and elegant Lost Generation prose style and for his utterly fearless commitment to the most demanding psychosexual comedies. The Extra Man extends his accomplishments considerably. This is one of the most charming and alarming books of recent years.
Review
Peter Cameron author of Andorra The Extra Man is effervescently funny and stealthily heartbreaking. It's also an extraordinarily humane book that only Jonathan Ames could have written, and I can think of few other novels that, scene by scene, character by character, phrase by phrase, offer such intense, affecting pleasure. Louis Ives now joins the pantheon of my most beloved narrators.
Review
J.D. Landis author of Lying in Bed The Extra Man is an Odd Couple for the sweetly naive and the cautiously dissolute. Is there anyone alive who fuses innocence and depravity with as much charm and conversance as Jonathan Ames? Here is a confection to be devoured on the loneliest of nights.
Review
Jeffrey Eugenides author of The Virgin Suicides Not since Harold and Maude has there been such a lovable odd couple as Louis Ives and Henry Harrison. Told in a lucid, diverting prose style, The Extra Man is a picaresque tale of a young man's sentimental education (in subjects ranging from tuxedo studs to transsexuals). In Henry Harrison, Jonathan Ames has created a truly memorable character.
Review
Martha McPhee author of Bright Angel Time Wonderfully odd and charming, at times riotously funny, Jonathan Ames' The Extra Man strikes a perfect balance between sympathy and comedy, drawing upon deep reserves of compassion for the strange and unnamable urges that infiltrate the lives of his two remarkable characters. What distinguishes this from other comic novels is that rarest of gifts -- generosity -- which delivers to the reader an uncommon and lasting share of dignity and grace.
Synopsis
"A storyteller of refreshing inventiveness and subtlety" (San Francisco Chronicle), Jonathan Ames has won critical raves for this delightful "comedy of impeccable manners with a debauched '90s spin" (Elle).
Meet Louis Ives: well-groomed, romantic, and as captivating as an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero. Only this hero has a penchant for ladies clothes, and he's lost his teaching post at Princeton's Pretty Brook Day School after an unfortunate incident involving a colleague's brassiere.
Meet Henry Harrison: former actor, failed but brilliant playwright, and a well-seasoned escort for New York City's women of means. He dances alone to Ethel Merman records, second-acts operas, and performs his scrappy life with the dignity befitting a self-styled man of the world. What can this ageless Don Quixote of the Upper East Side have to offer a young gentleman such as Louis? What, indeed.
Well, the answer lies somewhere between the needs of an irascible mentor and the education of his eager apprentice...between cocktails on the Upper East Side and an even more intoxicating treat along the secret fringes of Times Square...and between friendship and longing.
Synopsis
Meet Louis Ives: well groomed, romantic, and as captivating as an F. Scott Fitzgerald hero. Only this hero has a penchant for ladies’ clothes, and he’s lost his teaching post at Princeton’s Pretty Brook Day School after an unfortunate incident involving a colleague’s brassiere.
Meet Henry Harrison: former actor, failed but brilliant playwright, and a well-seasoned escort for New York City’s women of means. He dances alone to Ethel Merman records, second-acts operas, and performs his scrappy life with the dignity befitting a self-styled man of the world. What can this ageless Don Quixote of the Upper East Side have to offer a young gentleman such as Louis? What, indeed.
Well, the answer lies somewhere between the needs of an irascible mentor and the education of his eager apprentice . . . between cocktails on the Upper East Side and an even more intoxicating treat along the secret fringes of Times Square . . . and between friendship and longing.
About the Author
JONATHAN AMES is the author of I Pass Like Night; The Extra Man; What’s Not to Love?; My Less Than Secret Life; Wake Up, Sir!; I Love You More Than You Know; The Alcoholic; and The Double Life Is Twice As Good. He’s the creator of the HBO® Original Series Bored to Death and has had two amateur boxing matches, fighting as “The Herring Wonder.&
Table of Contents
ContentsChapter I
The Brassiere
There's to Be No Fornication
The Young Gentleman
Chapter II
Arrival
The Next Event
The Opera
The Extra Man
Otto Bellman and His Gang of Swiss Yodelers
Chapter III
I Felt Connected to Women All Over America
Porky Pig Fell Off a Cliff
An International Agreement on the Virtues of Chastity
The Recession Spankologist
Hot for Cockroach, Cold for Lead
Are You Jewish?
One of the Greatest Hoaxes of All Time
Chapter IV
We All Wanted to Be That Femme Fatale
I Met Someone Jewish
Americans Are Too Concerned with Athletics
Deep in Queens
Chapter V
The Jewish Duke of Windsor
Were There Animals?
This Is Only a Tape Recording
The Queen Has Fifty Rooms
Chapter VI
Four Gap-Toothed Dairy Maidens
Fort Schuyler
Breasts, Please
Cut Off Your Hair Like Salome
You'll Get an Erection and Then What Will I Do?
You've Brought So Much Toilet Paper into My Life
Chapter VII
Fleas, Cars, and Florida
The Whole City Has Fleas
He Saw a Piece of Cheese and Made Havoc with It
Chapter VIII
Straightish
My Analyst, Gershon Gruen
I Felt Something Under My Rear
Are You Having BMs?
The Essential Man
Chapter IX
Whatever Happened to Danny Kaye?
The Men Are Still in Charge Down There
Chapter X
She Wanted Me
People Are Dying, New Ones Are Coming Up
Otto Bellman Collects His Mail
Brassiere Revisited
Deep in Bay Ridge
All the Queens Were Dead
Chapter XI
I Was Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
That's All I Have to Say About America
The Life of a Fugitive
I Was Like Lady Macbeth
That's Very Good Cheese He's Eating
Lagerfeld Is Back In
A Tie Is Dipped
Chapter XII
It's Your Fellow Old People Who Tear You Down
Daphne Wants to Drink Cough Medicine and Smoke Cigarettes
Thank You, Dear Boy
Life Rushes By
You Look Practically Middle Class
A Girl as I Must Have First Imagined Girls
Russia