The Extra Man
By Jonathan Ames
(Scribner, Paperback, 9780671015589, 384pp.)
Publication Date: July 1, 1999
Other Editions of This Title: Google eBook, Paperback
Categories: General
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"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.
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.” For more information visit www.jonathanames.com.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This book is on these lists:
Wish List A by JoshuaOllie H.'s Wish List by Ollie H.
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Jay by jayjm
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