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

Jonathan Ames (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 23, 2000

"Jonathan Ames is one of the funniest writers in America," so says Jonathan Ames, who is actually writing this flap copy, which is the publishing industry term for the boastful fluff you read on the inner portion of most hardcover book jackets. So let the truth be known: Most writers write or at least rewrite their flap copy. And why not? They are writers after all. For the flap copy on my last novel, I had the audacity to pronounce that I was one of America's most talented young writers. My mother read that and was very proud, pointing it out to me. I then said to her, "I wrote that." But she was still proud; she probably didn't believe that I wrote it. In fact, she doesn't believe most of what I tell her, but that's probably because she couldn't take it if she did believe me. Which is a good way to describe this book, this comic autobiography: It's the kind of book one's mother shouldn't read, though there are several passages where I profess my great Oedipal love and desire for my mother, which she might find flattering. What else recommends this book, or, rather, what recommends me, since this book is about me. Well, I'm bald and ribald, I'm like Rabelais and Danny Kaye, sometimes I'm straight and sometimes I'm gay. Well, not really. I'm almost never gay, but it rhymed nicely with Kaye, and also I tend to be depressed rather than gay. But I do like to make others laugh, so if you're standing in a bookstore, I hope you'll find this book funny and I hope that you'll move on to my introduction, where I'll further implore you to keep reading, with the idea that you'll eventually purchase the book, which is the point, by the way, of flap copy.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The publisher likens Ames's first nonfiction book to "a twisted man's version of Candace Bushnell's classic, Sex and the City." But that comparison does Ames a disservice. Not only can this novelist (I Pass the Night; The Extra Man) and former New York Press columnist (the book is a collection of his columns) write circles around Bushnell, as well as around Ames's fellow ex-Press sex columnist, Amy Sohn, but Ames's columns reveal a sweet, wide-open soul, despite their outr? subject matter. And make no mistake, the matter is very outr?. The first column of 33 (and an epilogue) arranged in loose chronological order concerns how Ames, who entered puberty only on the cusp of turning 16, felt the need before then to hide his "little," hairless penis from his high school tennis teammates and coach, and how he ran to his mother's bed to show her his first erection. Further columns relate his experiences with flatulence, diarrhea, enemas, VD, prostitutes, first love and so on; in each case, Ames details his adventures with humor, poking incessant fun at himself and his obsessions. Occasionally, his comic timing can seem forced, and the humor shtick; in fact, Ames is a performance artist as well as a writer. But more often the book is laugh-aloud funny and delightfully wry. Above all, though, it's suffused with a wonderful compassion and sense of tolerance--Ames likes to hang with transvestites and considers his closest friend an amputee misfit whose claim to fame is the Mangina, an artificial vagina he wears onstage. There are strong echoes of Henry Miller here, in Ames's embrace of the human condition in all its variants, but Ames is his own man, his own writer (with an elegant, assured prose style)--and deserves hordes of his own fans.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Ames's work can usually be found in the New York Press column "City Slicker," and this is a collection of some of these columns. Ames chronicles his life's adventures, from delayed puberty through venereal warts, crabs, enemas, and blowjobs on the streets of Venice. The book jacket warns you that Ames "often crosses the line of 'good taste,' " which is quite true: this is definitely tongue-in-cheek, cosmopolitan humor. His warped adventures may shock some readers, although obviously his column has fans. The book focuses on stereotypically male topics like sex, drugs, and bodily functions. If you enjoy reading about the joys of producing an erection while holding in gas, this is the book for you. There are insightful moments that provide a glimpse into the struggles men face--baldness, penis size, part-time fatherhood. Seriously, there is some good stuff here for the reader who doesn't mind taking an outrageous path to get to it. Recommended for large public libraries.
-Kathy Ingels Helmond, Indianapolis-Marion Cty. P.L.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Crown; 1st edition (May 23, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0609605143
• ISBN-13: 978-0609605141
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.2 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (37 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #835,795 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jonathan Ames is the author of the novels Wake Up, Sir!, The Extra Man, and I Pass Like Night; a graphic novel, The Alcoholic (with artwork by Dean Haspiel), and the essay collections I Love You More Than You Know, My Less Than Secret Life, and What's Not to Love? He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and is a former columnist for New York Press. Ames performs frequently as a storyteller and has been a recurring guest on David Letterman. He has fought in two amateur boxing matches as "The Herring Wonder," and he has peformed in a number of shows. Ames had the lead role in the IFC film "The Girl Under the Waves," was a porn-extra in the porn film "C-Men," and played himself in a pilot episode for the Showtime network. At the time, he said, "It's the role I've been waiting for!" He lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Neurotic Pervert Shares All; Happens to be Gifted Writer, January 13, 2003

By 

Renee Thorpe (Karangasem, Bali) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer (Paperback)

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.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Adventures of a smart, sweet , and very funny man, August 19, 2001

By 

Eileen Galen (USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer (Paperback)

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.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional. Sex was never so hilarious., June 13, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer (Hardcover)

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.