ePub Extra Man download

by Jonathan Ames

Author:

Jonathan Ames

ISBN13:

978-0684864815

ISBN:

0684864819

Publisher:

Scribner Book Company (August 1998)

Category:

Fiction

Subcategory:

Contemporary

ePub file:

1416 kb

Fb2 file:

1479 kb

Other formats:

lrf lit azw txt

Rating:

4.5

Votes:

855

Jonathan Ames Contemporary

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The protagonist, Louis, answers Henry's ad for a roommate in the City after being fired from his teaching job at prep school after being caught trying on a female colleague's under garments.

Acclaim for Jonathan Ames and The Extra Man THE EXTRA MAN wins us over with its sheer energy and . By updating the moral education of a young gentleman, Ames has written a Bildungsroman for the end of our century.

Acclaim for Jonathan Ames and The Extra Man THE EXTRA MAN wins us over with its sheer energy and good will, its confidence in the ability of its own humor and intelligence to widen our ideas. 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.

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The Extra Man was first published in 1998 by Scribner. Jonathan Ames, The Extra Man. Thank you for reading books on GrayCity. Published by ONE, an imprint of Pushkin Press in 2018.

The Extra Man is a story of friendship and frustration, of cocktails and cross-dressing, a hilarious tale for our times from America’s most versatile wit. Jonathan Amesis the author of nine books including Wake Up, Sir! and You Were Never Really Here, both published by Pushkin Press. He also created the hit HBO comedy Bored to Death, starring Ted Danson, Zach Galifianakis and Jason Schwartzman, and Blunt Talk, starring Patrick Stewart. He has fought in two amateur boxing matches as The Herring Wonder. He lives in Los Angeles.

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

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.

I bought this book because I enjoyed Jonathan Ames' . sit-com 'Bored To Death' a great deal, so I figured I'd probably enjoy his novels too. If anybody else is riding a similar train of thought, I'll say that 'The Extra Man' isn't much I can safely say that I've never read anything like this book before. The closest I could get would probably be .

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.

In Henry Harrison, Jonathan Ames has created a truly memorable character

In Henry Harrison, Jonathan Ames has created a truly memorable character. 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.

Jonathan Ames is the author of I Pass Like Night; The Extra Man; What's Not to Love?; My Less Than Secret Life; Wake .

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. Close X. Learn about new offers and get more deals by joining our newsletter.

Jaberini

I greatly enjoyed the writing on Jonathan Ames HBO show "Bored to Death", so I picked up his novel "Wake Up, Sir!". I loved it, and then chose "The Extra Man" for my book club. Although I think it is a weaker text than some of Ames other novels, it is a very easy and enjoyable read.
First off, "The Extra Man" is vulgar, gratuitous, and graphic when it comes to sexual thought and exploration. If this is not something you are comfortable with, then don't pick the book up. It is a pervasive part of the text. The novel also offers a very unsanitzed view of NYC prior to the administration of Giuliani, who cleaned up a lot of the seedier elements of Manhattan. When these elements come together in the hands of Mr. Ames they create an engrossing, ambiguous, and interesting tale of sexual confusion and the human need for companionship.
The novel has two main characters, the first Louis Ives a twenty something ex teacher who has a myriad of sexual dysfunctions and issues. The other main character, although Louis is our narrator, is an older gentleman of ambiguous sexuality named Henry Harrison. Although I detested his character and the manner in which he lived, Ames has created a personality that leaps off the page and demands your attention. He is one of the most interesting and thought provoking characters I have come across in literature in a long time. These two men are thrown together through a unique plot twist, and the novel follows their lives for the next year or so. The relationship these two share is a mash up of love, need, power, getting comfortable with someone, control, jealousy, lust(?) and all of the other things (many of them gross and embarrassing) that make up the day to day of two people living in close proximity with each other.
There is a lot to "The Extra Man", more than this space can give it. I hesitate to say anything definitive about it, because Mr. Ames seems to go to such great lengths to not give the reader a definitive answer to anything, other than to make it obvious that humans need each other. The ways that need expresses itself can be, and is as varied as the 7 billion or so of us there are milling about the joint.
I am glad this was a book club selection because I will say that my appreciation for the text grew exponentially while discussing it with others. This is worth a read, but if you are new to Ames then I would recommend some of his other work before you ease into this one.

Bluecliff

If you can, see "The Extra Man" movie first, then read the book. They are both very hilarious and absorbing, but I like the movie better with Kevin Klein and Paul Dano. Louis Ives is a very strange, may I say weird twenty-six-year old who thinks he wants to be a cross dresser. The book is raunchier than the movie, and I favor the book's rendition. Louis leaves a private school job in Jersey and moves into Manhattan to build a new life for himself. The reason he left his job was he was caught in the faculty room trying on a woman's bra.
He becomes a roommate with 73-year-old Henry Hudson, a very eccentric screwball who has a very dirty apartment with mice, roaches, and fleas. Henry's beliefs, habits, lifestyle can only be described as oddball and bizarre. It's not really fair to make value judgments about the characters because many of them inhabit a parallel universe with different codes.
Henry lives off the favors of older women who bring him to the theater, restaurants and put him up for the winter season in Palm Beach. He isn't a gigolo, has Platonic relationships and never accepts cash for his companionship; he's what older women need, a handy extra guy to be their escort. Sometimes he wear trousers that reveal his backside, he uses mascara to darken his hair, he dances in his apartment like an Isadora Duncan, he listens to Ethel Merman records, and sleeps on his disreputable living room couch.
Louis adores him; Henry is his hero. Louis likes to go to a Times Square bar frequented by trannies. His sexuality is in flux, and Henry's is not quite clear. Henry easily makes enemies, and Louis becomes his only friend. They both have trouble with their old cars. Henry's religious beliefs are to the right of the pope's. He's penniless most of the time. A strange bird named Gershon lives downstairs, and he too worships Henry. He was played masterfully in the movie by John C. Reilly.
I loved the book for its oddball characters and theater of the absurd quality. It does not require belief, only a good sense of humor. It's not so oddball to me because I recall living in New York in my penniless days and an eccentric older guy taught me how to make ketchup soup at the Automat simply by fetching a free cup of hot water and using the table condiments.
The book is a hoot!

Jieylau

I read this book because I read a review that made the character of Henry Harrison sound interesting. I was expecting descriptions of parties and dates with rich people that would fill me in on a side of society I don't have contact with. It was not like that at all, but instead it was very true-to-life in comparison with my own experiences of being in new places.
Ives' inner fancies of himself as the young gentleman are drawing him into an odd acquaintance with Henry Harrison. And Harrison is just exactly like some people I have known who try to live off of others' social status. There is something about the spacing of the episodes and the things that go unexplained or detailed that exactly mimics the feeling one gets when spending a lot of time in this half-world.
And, interestingly, more and more of Ives' secret "predilections" become exposed, and his sense of shame and fear. He is such a sensitive character, and actually so well-rounded, that I felt the injustice of his fear of following his sexual curiosities and desires.
The way the book unfolds is actually a mirror of how one comes to know better and better individual people. Also, for some reason, the descriptions of cars and parking arrangements in this book are exceptionally charming writing.

Olwado

I loved this book . It has everything going for it ,the characters are just fantastic and the dialogue is just wonderful . This is the second time I have read it and it is still great

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