What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer

I laughed aloud frequently while reading this self-effacing if not wholly self deprecating series of stories which appear to be author's true adventures.Ames' writing is a lot like Woody Allen's humorous plays, old standup work, and screenplays... Readers get to laugh at the ridiculous yearnings and whines of a pitiful but somehow loveable nebbish, right? But Ames is apparently writing truthfully about his own sexual guilt, perversions, and fantasies. Quite remarkable that the writer can spin details of his unsavory problems with very taut, humorous prose. The result is, reader ends up rooting for the poor sap.It's all here: sex with a transsexual, his Oedipus complex, tales of his pal the exhibitionist, prostitutes, getting the crabs, you name it. Reader just doesn't know what to expect next, but Ames always manages to top each story with the next. Perhaps just as much could be said for average reader's appetite for the bizarre and perverse. I would guess that Ames knows all too well what sells, and he's just happy to oblige. Food for thought, but meanwhile, just go ahead and laugh your way through.Remarkably candid accounts and perfectly crafted humor make it impossible to dismiss him as a creepy pervert. Good old human frailty and honesty seem to prevail.

THEN READ THIS BOOK!!! For here you will not find tales of a misunderstood old man or unique black boy that some annoying liberal chic met doing volunteer work year's ago or any other typical fare you find in short story publications these days. Nope, Jonathan Ames writes to entertain not to score points with the creative writing departments at Midwestern grad schools. The stories in this book are mostly hysterical and very relatable even to those of us who are not polymorphously pervous sexually. Written in 1st person perspective, these stories give one an inside look at the "typical NYC jewish semi-obsessed with transexual" mind. I urge anyone who is looking for something, dare I say, ENJOYABLE to read, to pick up a copy for there is so much to love here, Mr. Ames mother should be proud!

Jonathan Ames is a thirtysomething New Yorker, a Princeton graduate, a former taxi-driver, a performance artist, a father, a devoted son and nephew, a lover of women, a friend to many, a romantic, and a very funny man. He is a raconteur, and writes about sex a lot. Puberty arrived late for him, and he still frets about size - even the size of his nose (too big, he says). He's been a model, but thinks he's ugly. He doesn't ever have much money. He worries about flatulence, and is beset by constipation (for which he takes a fiber supplement) and stomach troubles. He watches TV with his dad. He adores his mom. He's unconventionally sexual at times - fretting guiltily that his great-aunt Pearl, a real character with whom he is wonderfully close, lives nearby some of the locations of his escapades, and he isn't going to be stopping in to visit her.He's insomniac and wonders how he could ever spend a full night with a lover, since he has so much trouble getting a good night's sleep, period. He is drawn to many women, endeavors to please them, and it would seem that he does. He is funny, but he is quite competent. Ames freely admits to intense Oedipal conflicts (except for him they aren't conflicts; he embraces them - and they don't get in his way in the least). At the age of 28 he meets an appealing woman, a composer 37 years his senior. They go to bed, and have a lovely time of it. Ames describes the event in its entirety ("Oedipus Erects"). He's sweet. He wants you to laugh and to love him, and it's easy to do both.Ames' revelations about love, attachment, sexuality, and his winsome acceptance of his own and others' foibles make this book a delight. He is sincere and sweet and uninhibited. He believes in love and friendship, and he has a great memory. This book is thoroughly worthwhile.

There's a lot of undue hostility toward John Ames and his book. I'm always baffled by it. His book is honest, hilarious, twisted and, above all else, a beautiful read.Lazy writing style? I would call it easygoing and effortless. We're stuck in a craze where we want authors to indulge in page after page of "pretty" prose. I praise a man, like Elmore Leonard, who writes so smoothly you're instantly swept away.Ames might not be for everyone -- but that doesn't mean he shouldn't be sought out for those with an open mind and a penchant for devastatingly funny, sometimes raunchy and truth-revealing humor.(And...I cannot even THINK about his South of France story without weeping because I laugh so hard.)

I've long been a fan of the comic essay -- from Thurber and EB White to Woody Allen and Fran Lebowitz to David Sedaris. All of these people are brilliant. Perhaps it's because I share so many of Ames' peccadillos that he is my very favorite. People have compared the Jewish-sexually anxious (understatement of the century) Ames to Philip Roth. I understand the comparison, but Ames really is in a league of his own. I've never read anything quite like him. In the opening essay, "Pubertas Agonistes," Ames recounts his latent puberty with vivid detail and recollections of a harrowing time: He is forced to wear a corset for a back ailment, he suffers from an elevated testicle, he has no pubic hair and, as he tells it, "a secret, tiny penis......the penis of a five year old." In "Sex in Venice," he details his stint as a male nanny in Europe, where "in a mad act of affection" he steals the panties of his French "mother," tries them on and masturbates. "Then," he writes, "I threw them away, wanting to destroy the evidence of my crime." As in all of Ames' writing (both of his novels contain this), there is a tight-rope walk, balancing utter frantic joy with desperate melancholy. He is just as likely to make you weep sadly as he is to make you cry from laughing so hard. I must say, I was pretty disappointed by the assessment of this book by Kirkus Review, citing as proof of its inferiority, "The Playboys of Northern New Jersey," in which the author recounts an early sexual experience with a street hooker in Manhattan that concludes with her throwing tea in his face. Kirkus deems the essay insipid, done before. But not like this. Of the hookers who stand on the corner in the middle of winter drinking tea, he writes: "I didn't know if they drank tea to stay warm or to wash the taste of sperm out of their mouths." Lines like this abound. "My colon was clean," he writes elsewhere, " and my spirit was light." In "The Mangina," an essay about his friend Chandler who invents a prosthetic vagina for men to wear, Chandler produces a videotape of himself wearing the Mangina and playing with the labia and inserting a finger. Of this, Ame's says, "This is completely depraved....This makes Karen Finley look like a rank amateur." The same could be say of What's Not to Love? Jonathan Ames is one of a kind. And this book is absolutely hilarious. I laughed so hard, I nearly punctured a lung.