I Love You More Than You Know

October 3, 2005
Novelist and humorist Ames writes: "My whole oeuvre has become one big dysfunctional personal ad," and this uneven collection of essays often feels that way. Ames (Wake Up, Sir!
) informs readers several times of his height/weight vital stats. He is straight, but with a pansexual horniness that leads to inopportune erections, sordid encounters with prostitutes and an s&m session with a dominatrix and her transsexual boyfriend that makes him late for a play date with his son. He forthrightly, indeed obsessively, discloses details of his chronic rectal itch, his "explosive episodes of Irritable Bowel Syndrome" and every other gross bodily eruption and excretion that plagues him. And there's a note of self-deprecatory preening as Ames marvels at the young lovelies he still manages to attract and the other celebrity writers he hangs with on his book tours. Sometimes Ames's trademark combination of (literal) bathroom gags, hipster grotesquerie and neurotic free association achieves an inspired synthesis of confessional humor, but with overuse its hilarity and freshness decays into a lazy reliance on shock effects and embarrassment laughs. When Ames manages to wrench his gaze from his navel (and other orifices) and connect with outside reality, his prose sparkles with offhand comic insights. Photos. Agent, Rosalie Siegel.

January 15, 2006
The world is sick, imbalanced, and lunatic, according to storyteller/comedian Ames (I Pass Like Night), a self-described crooked literary clown. Ames's collection of 30 essays, many previously published, is inundated with scatological references that the reader comes to expect with each additional insight into the author's peccadilloes. These references do not detract from the quality of his collection, but readers with no knowledge of Ames's previous works may not give him a chance because of the coarseness. Tributes to George Plimpton and Jack Kerouac appear between tales of the author's family trips to northern New Jersey, book tours in Europe, and press credentials for a Tyson-Lewis fight in Memphis. Ames also includes the definitions he created for The Future Dictionary of America (McSweeney's, 2004), a work compiled by contemporary authors to raise money to promote progressive causes during the 2004 presidential election. While not all readers will appreciate the oddball humor, Ames is a fine contemporary writer not to be ignored. For larger public and all academic libraries." -Joyce Sparrow, Juvenile Welfare Board of Pinellas Cty. Lib., FL"

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