Jonathan Ames is the author of I Pass Like Night, The Extra Man, What's Not to Love?, and My Less Than Secret Life. His latest book, Wake Up, Sir!, will be published in 2004. He is the winner of a Guggenheim Fellowship and teaches at Columbia University. In addition to writing, Mr. Ames performs frequently as a storyteller in theaters and nightclubs. He was recently seen on The Late Show with David Letterman where he got the chance to do his 'hairy call' for a national audience and to talk about his childhood back and testicle problems.

Felicia Sullivan: I’ve just re-read your hysterical work, The Extra Man. I have to commend you – you have such affection and a sense of strong non-judgment in your characters who are sometimes flawed people that tend to stray from what’s considered normal in our society (what is normal anyway?) Can you talk about how you explored the tension between transgender and "normative" sexuality? Your explorations of shame: Louis seemed to have much greater anxiety about being discovered as a transsexual-chaser than he did about the actual sexual acts with his prostitute-lovers?

Jonathan Ames: I'm not sure that I explored any tensions, but I did write about the whole transgendered thing, though it wasn't the main 'theme' of the book; friendship and loneliness and humor were my chief concerns. To be honest, I don't fully remember what I was doing with the whole transsexual/transvestite/transgendered issue, but I think I was interested in looking at and dramatizing how one deals with all these 'Jungian' elements inside ourselves: the presence of the masculine and the feminine, searching for these qualities in others, searching for them in ourselves, and how it all can become very confusing and jumbled, like a spine that needs adjusting. And at that time I wasn't so aware of Jung, and I'm not so aware of him now, but he's a good name to reference when speaking of the feminine and the masculine. The anima and the animus. And as far as Louis's shame: I'm not sure which embarrassed him more, if he was in fact embarrassed: but probably how the world would see him would be of greater concern: the fear of judgment: once he was with someone, then sensuality and tenderness would transcend shame, at least momentarily. And only later, thinking of others, might it be terribly shameful, but even then, you move on . . . press on, try to forget.

FS:I was most taken with the overall theme, the bittersweet, shared yearnings of all of the characters for companionship amidst the cold and cramped New York society and lifestyle. Was this the theme you were seeking to evoke?

JA: Yes, I always like to write about people needing one another, loving one another.

FS: A steady stream of sexuality runs throughout your work – albeit puberty in your non-fiction work, fetishes, prostitutes, flaccid penises, absurd and intriguing sex and events surrounding sex in both your fiction and non – fiction work… Any comments? Any tips ?? What NOT to do?

JA: I guess I always liked to read about sex and so I ended up writing about it . . . Most everything in life seems to lead to sex -- wasn't that Freud's contention? I'm being terrible: first I'm referencing Jung and now Freud, and I have hardly read either, so to be using them as excuses and rationalizations for what I do is pretty ridiculous . . . I only get the distilled versions of their ideas, and most likely it's an improper distillation. Sex has sort of dominated my life; it seems to dominate most people's lives unless you're starving to death or just not very sexual, and so I write about it. My new book has almost no sex, though the main character ruminates on certain sexual questions.

FS: With incredible performance pieces, one-man shows, teaching at Media Bistro or Columbia, articles in the New York Press, readings and being a fixture in the New York arts scene, what is your foremost love – writing or performing?

JA: Writing. Because my first great love is books. But I do like performing: I like to make people laugh; I like that people gather for a performance; it must be some tribal yearning on my part.

FS: With all the recent negative jibes on MFAs, many (certainly not myself as an attendee of a program with such diverse styles and stories) would say that your style does not “fit” the MFA profile, the sort of churned out prose that many accuse the attendees of such programs to produce. What did you get from your Columbia degree? Any downsides to a program such as the MFA or more specifically, Columbia?

JA: I'm not too aware of an MFA style; but I also don't read a lot of contemporary fiction; too much old fiction to get through. I went for my MFA after I had already published a novel so that I could have a degree and be able to teach, but it was a good experience for me: I met some wonderful teachers and fellow students.

FS: If we broke into your apartment, side-stepped the pit bulls and snakes, who would we find on your bookshelf? Who wouldn’t be caught dead?

JA: No pit bulls or snakes in my apartment. My downstairs neighbor has a wonderful cat named Minimus who often visits me. And on my bookshelf you'd find lots of authors, my library is getting pretty big. Who doesn't love books? Books Do Furnish a Room is the title of one of Anthony Powell's books, and is part of his epic twelve-volume masterwork, A Dance to the Music of Time, which I finished reading this year, so you'd find that on my shelf. Authors who are particularly well-represented on my shelves (many volumes) are: Graham Greene, Paul Auster, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Charles Bukowski, Philip Roth, Alice Munro, P.G. Wodehouse. That's a brief sampling.

FS: What drives you to write about a particular story? Character? What gets the juices going to sit down and bang away on something new? (Wow, on second thought, that question could be taken so many different ways)

JA: I like to write things that I find amusing and that I hope someone else will find amusing, or something sad. Pretty simple. Sounds facile. Oh, well.

FS: A lot of memoirs that deal with getting over issues with alcohol and drugs induce me to sing “Chariots of Fire” while inhaling Kleenex or I’m waiting for them to appear on Oprah or the Today Show. You’ve effectively managed to write about your life (notably some of your struggles) infusing this incredible sardonic humor and wit. How did you come to write this way when you could have gone a darker route?

JA: My first book -- a novel -- was pretty dark. After reading it, my mother said: why don't you write something funny, you're so funny. So I think I took her advice. But I'm not always funny, if I even am funny. When people ask me what I write about, I always say: "The agony and the ecstasy." That more or less covers all your bases.

FS: Any new works coming out? Anything we need to know in the event we need to stalk you?

JA: My new novel, Wake Up, Sir!, should be out next spring from Scribner. The most immediate thing that I'll be a part of is "Reading It" at the Montreal Comedy Festival July 16-18.

FS: Any last minute comments? Shouts? Etc…

JA: Thank you for interviewing me; thank you for being interested in my 'work'.