What revelations might be read into his statement, upon seeing Maria naked, "It was a girl as I must have first imagined girls"?ħ. I wanted to be strong enough to hold someone, or lovely enough to be held."Ħ. What is the nature of Louis' sexuality? Consider his reaction to watching the young subway couple: "I wanted to be both of them. He says "their anti-Semitism and my Semitism were the major flaws in my young gentleman fantasy." How does he reconcile this?ĥ. One of Louis' major conflicts - apart from his obsession with balding - regards his Jewish heritage.
How does he feel about others with sex problems?Ĥ. At one point Louis says, "I felt less alone - the whole city had sex problems." How does his attitude regarding his "problem" change throughout the book? Chart his development from his first visit to the "recession spankologist" to his final escapade with Maria. Since he is the narrator, how does his fantasy shape the novel?ģ. Louis Ives considers himself a "young gentleman" fashioned out of the works of Fitzgerald and Wilde. What kind of novel is it? A comedy? A satire?Ģ. He develops a secret life there, which he fears will be his undoing and which he must keep hidden from Henry at all costs.Ī hilarious yet moving story about friendship and longing, The Extra Man is an original and unforgettable novel by one of America's most talented young writers. But Louis, when he's not with Henry, has fascinations that lead him to an unusual community on the fringes of the sex world of Times Square. The two men, separated in age by more than forty years, develop a relationship that is irascible mentor and eager apprentice, and they form a bond the depths of which neither expected. Thrust out of Princeton, he heads to New York where he rents a cheap room in the madly discombobulated apartment of Henry Harrison, a failed but brilliant playwright who dances alone to Ethel Merman records, sneaks into Broadway shows, and performs with great style the duties of a walker - an escort for the rich widows of the Upper East Side. 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. He dresses the part - favoring neckties, blue blazers, and sport coats. Louis Ives, the narrator of The Extra Man, fancies himself a young gentleman fashioned after his heroes in the books of F. 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.
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