This debut novel from Jonathan Ames was published in 1989 - I still have my first edition copy. In the mid-80s, a swirl of new novelists were hailed the 'literary brat pack' by The Village Voice. A group which included Jay McInerney (Bright Lights, Big City 1984), Tama Janowitz (Slaves Of New York 1986), Bret Easton Ellis (Less Than Zero 1985), lesser-known Emily Listfield (It Was Gonna Be Like Paris 1988), and I add this novel.
"Disturbing and funny...a striking debut" Joyce Carol Oates
This is an adult book, with sexual content not for every taste. Our narrator is a young Jewish man hustling for tips as number-two doorman at the Four Seasons. He knows how to defer to rich clients, catch the cabs, and get a free dinner in the kitchen. On Friday nights he travels to the suburbs for dinner with his parents - his traveling salesman father a curmudgeon who starts every meal with "I don't feel right." They are just happy he isn't driving a cab in Brooklyn.
In short recollections about his live-in girlfriend, and childhood friends long since drifted away, he negotiates the pitfalls of New York at street level, buddies with the homeless winos, the disturbed Veterans slowly dying off to make space for the addicts.
On the Lower East Side, he chooses streetwalkers, ever aware of the patrolling police, for quick encounters in the local park. He frequents Show World in Times Square, a variety of experiences collected in one place - the magazines, the adult movies, and the peep booths where the girl hands you a paper towel before the private show. Slowly, the drunken nights of picking up girls includes cruising for guys.
Very youthful, very downtown. At that volatile time, going to the clinic to check for herpes was turning into an AIDS check. But, if the next bus to Friday night dinner was still an hour away, he finds himself giving in to the tempting advertising "Live Girls, Incredible Shows".
His quirky sense of humour and the openness to discovery intrigued me back then, as did all the Brat Pack writers. This is not for everyone, but if you have an open mind and remember the 80's, there is a lot to like in his writing. I kept my 1989 Vintage Contemporaries edition, right alongside my Janowitz and McInerney.
Jonathan Ames is an actor, writer, comic, producer, screenwriter, and creator of three seasons of HBO's Bored To Death. His novels The Extra Man and his terrific thriller You Were Never Really Here were filmed. His New York Press column (collected in four nonfiction books) reflected his childhood neuroses and unusual experiences, which seems very much this book.
My other Jonathan Ames review:
1989 / Tradeback / 174 pages
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