I Love You More Than You Know

by Jonathan Ames

Jonathan Ames has drawn comparisons across the literary spectrum, from David Sedaris to F. Scott Fitzgerald to Woody Allen to P.G. Wodehouse, and his books, as well as his abilities as a performer, have made him a favorite on the Late Show with David Letterman. Whether he's chasing deranged cockroaches around his apartment, kissing a beautiful actress on the set of an avant-garde film, finding himself stuck perilously on top of a fence in Memphis in the middle of the night, or provoking fights with huge German men, Jonathan Ames has an uncanny knack for getting himself into outlandish situations. In his latest collection, I Love You More Than You Know , Ames proves once again his immense talent for turning his own adventures, neuroses, joys, heartaches, and insights into profound and hilarious tales. Alive with love and tenderness for his son, his parents, his great-aunt — and even strangers in bars late at night — in I Love You More Than You Know Ames looks beneath the surface of our world to find the beauty in the perverse, the sweetness in loneliness, and the humor in pain.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Memoir, Humor, Short Stories, Comedy, Biography

288 pages, Paperback

First published December 16, 2005

About the author

Jonathan Ames is an American author who has written a number of novels and comic memoirs, and is the creator of two television series, Bored to Death (HBO) and Blunt Talk (STARZ). In the late '90s and early 2000s, he was a columnist for the New York Press for several years, and became known for self-deprecating tales of his sexual misadventures. He also has a long-time interest in boxing, appearing occasionally in the ring as "The Herring Wonder".
Two of his novels have been adapted into films: The Extra Man in 2010, and You Were Never Really Here in 2017. Ames was a co-screenwriter of the former and an executive producer of the latter.

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another collection of humorous and painfully honest essays by Jonathan Ames. If you're a fan, this will surely satisfy. If you're not, this is unlikely to convert you.

Personally, while I do find Ames funny (I wouldn't be reading his books if I didn't) I do find his sexual obsessions tedious. It's a bit like listening to a thirteen-year-old boy with a very good vocabulary talk about his sexual obsessions; it's eye-rolling material. Fortunately for me, there are plenty of other subjects covered here and quite a few laughs to be had.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Visits to prostitutes, dominatrices, swingers clubs, tranny clubs, the Tyson-Lewis fight, and the Banana Bar in Amsterdam (non-culinary innovations with bananas); cockroaches in bathtubs; an adorable farting English child in the next bathroom stall; and endless discussions of bodily effluvia, irritable bowel syndrome, and ass-itch - such are the topics of these essays by the man who once called himself "the George Plimpton of the colon." There is some extremely funny stuff here, and there is no confession so grotesque and self-deprecating (probably self-humiliating would be a better word) that Ames won't admit to it. Here's one of his more charming admissions:

Whenever I go for walks, I troll for love from anonymous dogs. First, I ask the human owner if I can pet their dog. Then I get down on my knees and the dogs love me up and lick the wax out of my ears. I nuzzle their necks and practically give them a hickey. What I'd really love to do is to lie on a field with a hundred dogs and just roll around and have an orgy of affection. I'd prefer that to a human orgy.

[Abel · Rating 4 out of 5]

rtc

[Janice · Rating 3 out of 5]

After furiously cramming for the New York bar exam like a maniac for two months, I decided to start this a week before the exam, as I was in desperate need of a light palate cleanser and some comic relief. And it was just that. Light, sometimes funny and sweet, (but not overly twee) but also sometimes kind of boring - hence the three stars. Yes, he’s self-deprecating, but at times it seems a bit disingenuous - like it’s a ploy to make you like him. Thus, I vacillated between rolling my eyes at him and being somewhat charmed. And I really tried to resist his charm. I’ll admit, my opinion of Jonathan Ames as a person, may have been erroneously colored by some dubious anecdotes I had heard of his reputation in Fort Greene as a lothario, with a penchant for drunk girls in their early twenties (and yes, I realize I probably described most men that have received any kind of fame or notoriety). For this reason, I didn’t want to like him. By the end of the book, I did like him. A lot. Jonathan, next time you go to Yaddo, call me.

[Jonathan Turner · Rating 2 out of 5]

The blurb on the back cover of Jonathan Ames’ essay collection, I Love You More Than You Know, reads “Whether it’s chasing deranged cockroaches around his apartment, kissing a beautiful actress on the set of an avant-garde film, finding himself stuck perilously on top of a fence in Memphis in the middle of the night, or provoking fights with scarred German men, Jonathan Ames has an uncanny knack for getting himself into outlandish situations. He’s also quite good at finding himself in banal situations and making them outlandish.”

All of that is true. And having read the essays and situations referred to, I can only respond with an emphatic yawn. The problem is that the essays do little more than exactly what is described above. For all the kookiness of the anecdotes he relates, they mostly show off the author’s charmingly gonzo life. The prose is uninspired, the jokes are mildly amusing, and there is a dearth of anything of emotional or intellectual interest.

If a friend of mine had room for only one more person at a dinner party, I would gladly give up my seat for Jonathan Ames. No doubt, he would be a much more entertaining guest than me. And while I envy his ability to live a life that lends itself to storytelling, and then make a living off of “making fun of himself” (as his son aptly sums it up) I wouldn’t recommend reading his essays. Go meet him, have a drink with him, see where the night takes you. Or go have your own outlandish fun. It would be more rewarding than reading about his.

[mehg-hen · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have no idea how I feel about this.
a) I was upset to find out how much of my life resembles his in ways I do not want it to (credit card useage, life station, being cheap)
b) I was upset that related to a) (because of a?) he like...sees hookers and talks about his ass?
c) There was a point that I hated this book and felt like humankind is a despicable pile of garbage and I should be a hooker and everyone goes to hookers and no one is responsible for their bad habits or anything and "well, I guess I'm just weak" in that weird "I'm proud of it, it makes me cool" kinda way, and like he's cultivating it, brrrrr I felt weird!!!!!

but then there's d

d) he had some truely beautiful things at the end? In some essays? That weren't dirty? Like I was waiting for the end of SNL when the weird Scott Joplin sketch comes up (if that makes sense). I hate, love, like, am disgusted by, am angry at, and admire this book. I do not believe that he thinks he's ugly. Something about a guy being like "I'm so ugly" and dating hot young women and Fiona Apple that I just don't buy. Like "I'm so ugly" really means "pity me, then I'll get to hump you, oh man I'm going to love humping you and when you're boring I'll tell someone younger that I'm ugly and then hump her, oh I can't wait."

I heard his story about crack on The Moth and loved it. So. Maybe I want to hump him. I have a lot of confusing feelings about this.

Mainly I learned that I can get rid of my own tartar with a $7 implement I just got at Walgreen's. That was my big lesson.

[George Ilsley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Have previously read some of Ames' collections but cannot recall which ones. This one did not resonate with me as much as whatever I previously read. Maybe I'm just more used to the unexpectedness that is Jonathan Ames.

Sorry to be so vague about it all.

Ames presents himself as so pathetic and unlikeable (the opposite of self-aggrandizement) that actually he transitions into someone who is oddly likeable. It's all kinda weird; often in a good way.

[aistė aidur · Rating 3 out of 5]

I did like the part about him meeting David Sedaris (and Hugh!), that's because I love Sedaris. Also, I liked the one about why he loved Jack Kerouac. But mostly I am happy I read this because now I know a great book to add to my wishlist - Paula Fox's "Desperate characters". So, thank you, dear JA.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

The dirty fun of Ames' irreverent personal essays does not make up for shiteous writing.

[Kostas Kanellopoulos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bored to death creator is awesome. A dirtier David Sedaris, a more scatological transfriendly Charles Bukowski.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars.

[Agris Fakingsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

..reti labs stāstu krājums. grāmatas vienīgais trūkums ir tas, ka tā nav izdota latviski. | 4,5*

[Colin · Rating 1 out of 5]

I picked this book up on a whim. I was searching for a birthday present for my mother. We had recently discussed our love of essays, mostly our admiration of Sarah Vowell and David Sedaris, so when I saw the blurb on the front of this book that claimed Ames was an edgier Sedaris, I bought the book.

Ames is not an edgier Sedaris. He is a competent writer who fills his diary with sentimental drivel and name-dropping. On top of that, his musings on sexuality are "edgy" only in the sense that they mention sexualities that are outside the "norm." For Ames, sex is dirty and filled with guilt. I am specifically thinking of his experience with a dominatrix and her pre-op transsexual boyfriend. After the encounter, he is playing with his son and his son's friend in the park, and he cannot believe that he engaged in something so tawdry and disgusting as S/M when he could have been spending time with his son, drawing contrasts between the "depraved" sexual underworld and the "pristine" family world. It reeks of conservative rhetoric parading as alternative and witty. Even in his most domestic, sentimental moments, Sedaris makes room for difference, something Ames claims to do before passing into hackneyed cliches.

He did have two essays toward the end of the book, one on Kerouac and another on break-ups, that were good. Other than that, the book is a flop.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Who is this lanky stud running down a street in his underpants (the book cover)? I had to find out. Ames' amusing collection of revealing personal essays and oddball experiences, combined with some too-often repeated bodily function problems and obsessions, made for a fun read, and one that might make the reader feel more normal by comparison. There is a lot of warmth and vulnerability in the stories, which are probably laugh-out-loud when read aloud. But reading them all at once was like binging on a box of one flavor of chocolates. His topics include what's on the book jacket; his odd life, money obsessions, transgender prostitutes, his son, and most endearing, his love of his elder relatives. His 'paper tiger'-esque forays into sports writing are nicely off-center. I look forward to reading his fiction, although I hope there are no characters with nose-picking or butt-scratching habits.

[jesucristo.69 · Rating 5 out of 5]

I ate this book. it made me laugh and it made me weep

[Kyle Myers · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Margot Leitman's Long Story Short: The Only Storytelling Guide You'll Ever Need and she cites This book and Ames as one of her inspirations. Specifically how personal Ames gets in his writing.

What's not to love about a collection of essays?

Most of these are 5-10 minute reads with a few longer ones thrown in. Which I think is just about the perfect length. If you are a fan of the writer you will enjoy this book. I found a lot to like, there is a lot of humor, a few interesting characters as well as some insight into Ames relationship to the writers that influenced him which I really enjoyed.

However, there was also this grotesque, pathetic quality that pervades most of the essays which I personally found off-putting. It seemed like every essay always returned to how bald Ames is, how itchy he is, or his IBS. Another factor I didn't enjoy were the dictionary entries. None of them were particularly funny and hit a kind of silly tone that didn't fit in thematically with the rest of the essays.

Overall I felt the collection was good though it didn't really meet my expectations.

[Leftbanker · Rating 3 out of 5]

The recommended way to take in this book is to have someone read it to you through a glory hole in a public restroom. Don't put your ear too close to it.

OK, so he’s not as funny as David Sedaris. David Sedaris has the intellectual depth of a TV commercial so why would you invite that comparison? Actually, I didn’t find this collection of essays funny at all but I did enjoy its vast range, at least in those that aimed higher than his butthole. You wonder how the guy ever got around to actually procreating seeing how he has gone off on so many sexual tangents that straight up heterosexual sex doesn't seem to be his cup of tea.

I could never write anything even remotely this personal. I just feel that my life isn’t interesting enough to warrant tough scrutiny. Dick warts and itchy buttholes don’t make for very interesting reading but I found a few things to like in this collection.

If nothing else, these essays made me nostalgic for the age of great magazine writing and great magazines. I live outside the U.S. and don’t have access to the magazines I used to have delivered to my home. Wow, what a concept! I read mostly eBooks these days but I really, really miss reading actual magazines.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked this up because I’m a big fan of Bored to Death and found Ames’s essay “The Mess I’m In” amusing. To sum it up (and this is not necessarily an insult), the book is filled with self-deprecating navel-gazing. Sometimes the humor really lands, and other times he's too indulgent. If you’re completely unfamiliar with Jonathan Ames, you might think of him a bit like David Sedaris’s more neurotic, more literary, more sexually-explicit cousin. He sure doesn’t mind baring unflattering aspects of himself in the name of comedy! In my opinion, “No Contact, Asshole!” was the height of the collection—it had me chuckling at the DMV.

[Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very moving

4-ish, and I fully had expected this to be a resounding 5. I saw Jonathan Ames in a live show in NYC when I lived there (maybe 2001/2002), and I laughed so hard that I had to take off my shirt to wipe off my streaming teared-covered face.
While this book definitely got me laughing, there were many essays that spoke to the other aspect of comic genius, i.e., depression, anxiety, substance abuse, and/or suicidality. Very well articulated and genuine. And I suspect the only reason this deterred me from a 5-star rating is that at this moment in time -- pandemic, sheltering in place -- I craved something unfailingly funny.

[Billie Pritchett · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jonathan Ames is a yeoman writer. His sentences do the work, his essays tell a story, and leave it at that. So why am I so unhappy with this collection of essays? I guess it's because the essays about unremarkable events (his visits to his great-aunt, for instance) lack any lyrical elegance and his many, many essays about being perverse don't interest me and they're not funny in spite of their effort to be so. I don't remember chuckling once. All that withstanding, your average bear can't write a sentence as clear as Ames, so maybe I'd read something else by him, a novel maybe. We'll see.

[Sean · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun little change of pace. Remember it from a read years ago being slightly funnier. Perhaps it’s personal growth? Doubtful. Still, a collection of some hilarious bits from a personal fave circa the early aughts. Who else can make genital wart-induced suicidal ideations comic? Who, I ask you?! Because I’d also like to read them.

[Nicholas Ball · Rating 4 out of 5]

Neurotic and scatalogical at its core, and funny, and that alone makes this fine (if you like those things), but Johnathan also can drops hauntingly beautiful sentimental memories among the self-hating alcoholic madness.

[Dipra Lahiri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Frank and brutally honest, without any hesitation about his own follies and foibles. Amongst all the essays guaranteed to provoke, are some that beautifully express his love for family, esp. his aunt, very touching.

[Emily Lockwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilarious and almost entirely true

I love this author and I've only read two of his books! I am definitely going to be buying more in my future!

[Jordan · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25

[Shane C · Rating 5 out of 5]

this book was very entertaining!!

[Mike · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Eventually I got out of that hospital - the doctor told me I was a maniac, but it was an incorrect diagnosis - and I became a writer”

[Simone Subliminalpop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Raccolta di pezzi e racconti, brevi o brevissimi, come al solito autobiografici (per quel che può significare il termine), di Jobathan Ames, un autore che mi piace particolarmente perché sa parlare di cose drammatiche facendo ridere e sa far ridere senza togliere riflessione alla sua prosa, alle sue storie. Per certi versi è molto simile ad autori come David Sedaris o Sam Lipsyte proprio per questa capacità di scherzare, forse nel tentativo più consono a uno scrittore per esorcizzare, su ogni tragedia quotidiana, piccola o grande che sia. Tra i migliori episodi della raccolta: “Autocondannato: la mia vita di scrittore, gli ultimi anni”, “Tutti muoiono a Memphis”, “Come tentai quasi il suicidio per colpa di una verruca”, “Rue St. Denis” e “Puttane, scrittori e un brufolo: il mio viaggio in Europa”.

[Wyatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honest and Hilarious

Thank you, Mr. Ames, for rekindling my love of reading. I've been putting books down halfway through for the past few months (overwritten, too dreary, too serious), so it was a pleasure to read this collection of essays. On multiple occasions, I laughed out loud, to the point that my wife had to ask me to please be quiet because she was trying to sleep. At the root of this humor is a deep honesty, as one man reflects on his own estimation of himself. Mr. Ames, my only disagreement is that you are too hard on yourself. You have a good heart, and the world is lucky to have you, wart (or just a hair follicle) and all.

[J.C. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was drunk at my friend Sam's place one time. We were drinking and having a merry time as usual, and also as usual I was glancing through her book collection.

"You should read this." She hands me this random book with a guy running in his boxers. I thought the cover looked like some long forgotten memoir from the eighties.

"Why's that? I'm reading Vonnegut, can't you tell?" I say to her. And it's true I was, I believe it was Cat's Cradle.

"Ok, for one, you should never read while you're drunk. You've been reading the same paragraph for the last five minutes. Second, you will greatly enjoy this book, I promise."

I squint at her. How the heck did she know that I kept losing focus while reading and was reading the same sentence over and over again? Woman's powers of observation escape me.

"Will it make me LOL in public, maybe pound the table cause of something witty that I wish I had written in my own works, maybe cry a little on the inside at some deeply profound, humane and hilarious insight?" I ask her, putting Kurt down.

"Oh yes. All three of those.....that was three, right?"

and so it were that she was correct, about all three. I enjoyed the book, and really glad I didn't read it while drinking.