Customer Reviews

My Less Than Secret Life: A Diary, Fiction, Essays

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Bored, lonely, depressed and poor? Of course you are. So you look for solace in the recent glut of memoirs and find that although Andrew Solomon was vomiting from depression he once worked 12 hour days followed by attending 4 parties. Who does that? And don't get me started on the "Girl's Guide to Sex in the City" subgenre.

Jonathan Ames, on the other hand, describes the world I inhabit - one where where every sexual encounter is fraught with anxiety and guilt, where the daily choice is between the horrible and the miserable. Yet he somehow does it with a kindness, sense of decency and a wistfulness that is redeeming. The author-reader connection is intimate and the end result is a feeling of being allowed a view into someone else's life while taking a vacation from your own.

Your average reader may never find him/herself participating in a backyard animal sacrifice, attending a support group for S&M enthusiasts, or being brow-beaten by a Jamaican customs official. Self-described "comic-depressive" Jonathan Ames has endured all these adventures and many more and--luckily for us--has chronicled them with astonishing candor, wit and humility in his latest collection. Ames makes you empathize with every scenario, from the most seemingly mundane indignities to the most fantastic (or phantasmagoric). His brilliantly self-deprecating prose is laugh-out-loud funny--I found myself chuckling inappropriately in public as I read how he has been dubiously appointed the expert-in-residence on venereal afflictions to his friends--but extremely poignant, too. He often gives voice to the marginalized of society--prostitutes, transsexuals, porn stars and derelicts--but never in a condescending or exploitative way. I only wish I hadn't devoured it so quickly--next time I read it, and I most definitely will--I'll try to time-release my doses of hilarity. All in all, a highly addictive, moving and oddly reassuring book.

I couldn't put this book down, wanting to read just one more chapter in the life of Jonathan Ames each time. The stories are nothing short of brilliant. Ames excellence stems from the fact that shares everything with the reader - the good, the bad, and even the very ugly. If he fells intimated, hurt, or embarrassed, he tells you. These stories are told exactly as they unfolded, there is no spin doctoring by the author to put him in a better light. The authors sincerity aside, the book is very amusing. Most of us will only find us in one or two of these situations in a lifetime, but Ames seems to be in one several times a month! How many orgies or animal scarifies have you been to? If you are a fan of Ames, pick this book up immediately, and if you are not a fan, this book will make you one.

I came across this book in a very weird way, but that's another story. This book comes in three parts: a collection of diary entries (from an autobiographical column in the New York Press), short fiction, and essays.

We begin with the diary, and what a diary it is. As Chip Kidd blurbs, "This book is yet more proof that Jonathan Ames's life is infinitely more interesting than mine. And yes, yours." Mine too. I mean, my life hasn't always been as dull as it is now. In fact, at times it's been downright fascinating. But never in the way that Ames' life is. This "shy exhibitionist" finds glory and pathos in the details, the endless minutiae. He also has friends whose freakishness is unmatched (most notably his best friend, The Mangina), and stumbles into situations that would be unimaginable for anyone else.

All of which made me somewhat flattered by the comparison (someone mistook me for a writer with four books to his credit!) and somewhat apprehensive (someone mistook me for a balding alcoholic pervert!).

The fiction section, coming after the diary, is hard to read as fiction, focusing as it does on first person narration by protagonists who resemble the author himself: the single girl-crazy struggling Jewish author. It's hard to separate author and subject, except to think that maybe the fiction is the daydream that he only wished happened (i.e., he gets the girl). I'm curious to read his novels, to see if they provoke a similar reaction.

The final sections are devoted to essays of various kinds: criticism, "Essays With Sexual Content (A warning or a recommendation, depending on your personality)," and "Essays Without Sexual Content (A warning or a recommendation, depending on your personality)." Ames brings the observation skills of a scientist to his subjects, rendering them in a style that only occasionally veers from interested objectivity into pathos (this is a man whose heart breaks a little regularly). Whether the topic is Life on the Set of a Porn Film or his own experiences in rehab, he brings a humour born of fondness to the task at hand, never condescending or making fun, but trying to understand.

In any case, My Less Than Secret Life is addictive, funny, enthralling despite its repeated forays into bodily functions (nosepicking is a frequent topic, and testicle waxing makes a rare appearance). I couldn't put it down even when I wanted to.

Jonathan Ames is a jewel! It will be interesting to see if the Letterman show actually lets him go on! Bleep bleep bleep. This book continues where "What's Not to Love" left off. Jonathan's Walter Middy style prose is both innocent and X-rated. Whether he's talking about nude wrestlers in The Herring Wonder, trying to get invited to his first orgy or taking his dad onto a porn set, he's able to take the unimaginable and make it hilarious. The whole chapter on penis enlargement is a hoot; and the S&M support group is hysterically funny. My only caution with this book is that if you read it publicly such as on the treadmill at the gym, you might find people looking at you with enquiring eyes when you start to howl! This is another gem from our American Oscar Wilde! Don't miss it!

Ames has cast his pearls to swine once again and I drink them down with delight! A natural storyteller, his prose is witty and his escapades ordinary men can only dream of. He peels off the layers and reveals his own nakedness, stark and admirable. 'My Less Than Secret Life' is for the voyeur in each of us.

If you've ever been in a relationship, that has just ended against your heart's will, and shockingly, right along with theirs, and found yourself in a book store, cruising the shelves endlessly for that one perfect book, with just the right blend of humor and pain, with passages that shed truth and light on your life and can therefore bring you solace and survival of your own pain, well then this is the book you need.You always hear stories from friends and strangers and your favorite movie characters how this book, or that record, or a particular film got them through their break up, and you want that very thing to call your own. So you wind up in a giant bookstore looking for that perfect new book to be your very own "get you through it" solution. Well, this book is it. It just may save your life.

Ames writes with such honesty about the human condition it is amazing, and he does so with such humor I find myself laughing outloud, which can get me in trouble on subway when i read the book going home. But it's worth it, his writing is so real and true and honest. He really gets it. Definitely the best book of this year, or any year.

This companion book to "What's Not To Love" collects more of Ames'New York Press columns and shows why Ames is one of the finest, and funniest, writers of his generation. His brutally honest sagas of nearly attending an orgy and his exploits as the boxer known as "The Herring Wonder" will keep you in stitches. This compelling collection is ideal for the prurient, neurotic underdog which Ames champions.

"My Less Than Secret Life" is a must read!

I recently happened upon it while perusing my local bookstore looking for new reading material. This book is pure unadulterated pleasure. I am fascinated by Jonathan Ames and his hilarious and oddly uplifting misadventures. I would strongly recommend "My Less Than Secret Life" to anyone who has a penchant for that which is unique. Jonathan Ames is truly incredible!