In Jonathan Ames' new novel, What's Not to Love, out this month, optimism is shrouded in nervous guilt: Ames lets us in on his conflicts, his parenthood, his perversions and sexual confusion, coming off as someone with which you wouldn't mind sharing dinner conversation (and not just because you feel sorry for him).

Ames' has published two fiction novels, I Pass Like Night, and The Extra Man. But What's Not to Love is a compilation of embellished autobiography culled from his time as a columnist at New York Press, from the fall of 1997 to February 2000. Ames' NYPress writings about his life might or might not have include orgies, dipsomania and boxing matches against performance artists. Even when his life is not that interesting, the 36-year-old, Brooklyn based author's casual, confessional tone imbues all the events of his life, with touching pathos.

Ames explores three main themes in What's Not to Love: troubles (a late puberty, an ascended testicle, and the embarrassment those phenom caused him in the shower at tennis practice), problems (enema adventures and injuries caused picking his nose…again) and difficulties (being overshadowed at his own readings by the inventor of The Mangina: a prosthetic vagina for men). All the while, Ames remains humane and endearing, and above all, very very funny.

COMMONPALCE spoke to Jonathan Ames via phone, about: his new book, using his perversions as inspiration, how to raise a child while writing about your non-traditional personal life, and the sexy women of Cuba.

I steered toward subjects and issues myself or readers have had regarding COMMONPLACE: the documentation/imagination issue, the 'don't come up to me and ask me about my journal when you see me out with a woman' issue.

ME: Explain the title of your new book, What's Not to Love).

AMES: At first I thought I wanted to use one of the chapters, but none of the chapters seemed to strike an overall whole note. So I was gonna call it Troubles, Problems, Difficulties…but then one day I was reading an article about this young golfer, Sergio Garcia and the sports writer wrote something like, …'what's not to love about Sergio Garcia?'…I don't know whether I'm lovable or not, or I dunno…if my character's…I dunno, it just seemed to work…But, it's like a memoir and it's also adventures, that kind of thing.

ME: There's a chapter in the book where you're giving a reading and there's this discussion about imagination and autobiography…

AMES: Um…

ME: Do you know what I'm talking about?…you're giving a reading in a small room…I think it's at Princeton.

AMES: Um…that's not in this book.

ME: It's in…uh…What's Not to Love?…oh, ah…that might have actually been in one of your (NYPress) columns…I'm sorry. Well how much of an issue is that for people: the autobiography vs. fiction aspect of your books or how much is real and how much is imagination? Do people who have read your works treat you based on who you are as seen through your work?

AMES: Well, the column you were referring to, the two gentleman were having a discussion based on hearing me read from my other (fiction) novel, The Extra Man…with fiction everyone sort of assumes it's true…but with this non-fiction (What's Not to Love) I've been sort of hoping they'll assume that it's not true like, 'no way could it be true'…In What's Not to Love and in the (NYPress) columns, I did create a persona for myself, it is sort of exaggerated in a way, though the events are essentially true. I know that people, from reading me, think I'm a certain way.

ME: Do you have people trying to relate to you on levels that may have been fictionally expressed, I dunno, people telling you their strange sexual preferences and habits…?

AMES: A little bit. I think people, after they've read my work over the years, they feel like, 'oh, maybe I could confess to this guy what I'm up to,' or they feel…in the good sense of writing, 'less alone, there's some kindred spirit out there,' so maybe they'll convey to me, 'wow, I really like your reading your stuff, I don't feel like such a weirdo,' or someone on the street'll say like, 'I can't believe you wrote that down, I did that, but I never would tell anybody.'

ME: You've never had any problems with it though? Somebody maybe taking it too close to heart or something?

AMES: I've gotten some strange mail…but nothing too dangerous or weird. I wrote that enemas chapter and some guy, from Florida actually, sent me a book he'd published on 'the sexual history of the enema'. He thought that I was a kindred enema spirit…but stuff like that, nothing too bad…I also perform and when people watch from the audience, or people come see me again, they feel like they know me and they'll come up after….just, people being more intimate with you than you are with them.

ME: Is that alright with you.

AMES: Yeah…I mean…I'm out there, and sometimes I wish I wasn't but…you can retreat and not put yourself on the line so much.

ME: When you were doing the NYPress column, did you put yourself in certain situations just so you could write about them, push your life a little bit further so you could have stuff to write about? I'm just curious as to how far you might go out of your way…

AMES: I didn't go out of my way too much. I mean, some kind of like, internal camera or tape recorder was on all the time knowing that my life was the fodder for the column. So, sometimes I might be like, 'hmmm, maybe I'll…' As time went on I started searching more for material:…this friend of mine was really into African religions and she was gonna do a live animal sacrifice and…I might not have gone to it, but then I thought, 'oh, there could be a column in that.' So I went. Someone told me about an orgy, which I knew I couldn't get into unless I brought a woman, but I went anyway just to be turned away, cause I thought there might be a column in that.

ME: I read about the orgy…you were suppose to go back August 18th…you never made it in?

AMES: No…but (the animal sacrifice) will hopefully be in the next book of columns.

ME: Your next book will be a compilation of columns as well?

AMES: Yeah, if I can get it published.

ME: But, since you've been using your life as the basis for your writing, I figured there'd be times when you got off the train and maybe went down the wrong dark street because you though it might be more interesting to write about. How do you think that writing autobiographically has changed the quality of your life?

AMES: I guess I don't see a correlation between writing autobiographically and trying to improve the quality of my life…I think because I've been sort of curious: I have adventures. And it's good that I can write about them.

ME: Yeah, I guess I honed in on that word, 'adventures.' You talk about going on adventures as if you set out to do these things so that you can tell us about them;

AMES: I think I set out to do them just to do them, but then in the back of my mind I say, 'well, I could write about it.' Or maybe I might justify doing something perverted by thinking, 'oh, I could write about it,' but really it was probably because I wanted to do something perverted.

ME: So, you're leaving for Russia soon?

AMES: Yeah, in a couple hours (exasperated little laugh).

ME: You're teaching? What are you teaching?

AMES: Fiction writing…and non-fiction and poetry writing also…It's through Union College, so, one of those, you know, exotic writing seminars in a far away land.

ME: Do you speak Russian?

AMES: No, it's English speaking students.

ME: Is there anything you plan on doing in Russia for the sake of writing about it?

AMES: I was reading about the Artisinos in St, Petersburg where the Russian Mafia hangs out and that might be an interesting scene. But I'll just let life unfold and see if I can find something interesting…y'know, I mean, not much interesting has to happen, but you can make it interesting.

ME: Have you been to Russia before, because there's that thing in your last novel, The Extra Man, where one of the main characters is always singing the praises of Russia and idealizing it and wanting to leave and go live in Russia? I was just wondering what your thing is with Russia?

AMES: It's just a pure coincidence that I got this teaching gig and the characters in my novel yearn to go there. It is kind of funny…if I want to write a sequel (to The Extra Man) I'll have some information about the place.

ME: I thought you might be fulfilling some life goal by going to Russia.

AMES: Not really, I'm more drawn to…I went to Cuba in December. I think I was more excited about that. Russia, it just sounds like, just wildly chaotic there. I dunno. (exasperated sigh) I guess, but not having any of the language though; it feels a bit daunting. But I'll be very, sort of, taken care of, cause I'll be with this writing seminar. But I'm sure it'll be very beautiful so I'm grateful for the chance to go.

ME:I heard the prostitutes in Cuba are really beautiful, not that I'd partake or anything , but I've just heard all these legends about how beautiful the prostitutes are there.

AMES: Well, I wouldn't say that the prostitutes are beautiful, I would say that the people of Cuba are beautiful and the women are…just...are just very very very very very beautiful (exasperated laugh). It's just this incredibly sexy place

ME: The redhead thing: both you and your son are redheads, is this an issue for you? Do you have any insight into this?

AMES: I guess it's not a big theme for me. My hair got blonder as I got older…some cross between blonde and red…so I wasn't traumatized with too much of the red, Early on people used to call me Danny Partridge but…there are a lot of redheads in my family.

ME: How did you end up getting your column… It seems kind of anomalous, being paid to write about the stuff you write about every week.

AMES: Yeah, it was sort of a lucky thing. First of all, the New York Press is a really interesting alternative paper…a couple years ago they were doing a lot more first person stuff, a lot of their columns were all these sort of diaristic columns…A friend of mine showed one of the main editors a chapter from The Extra Man, which I still hadn't sold, and which had been rejected by most publishers. (NYPress) did publish a chapter of The Extra Man, and they asked me to write anything I wanted. And the paper's sort of first person, so I just started writing first person essays for them. And after doing that for about a year I asked them if I could have a column but at the time they said they didn't think so, because they had too many white males already…but then they said, 'oh, what the hell, let's give him a chance and I did that for the next two and a half years. And it was fun to have a voice in the city and a lot of people read it and I got one book out of it. Hopefully two. But I stopped because I was getting tired of the form and tired of writing about myself.

ME: So the next book you sit down to write won't be as autobiographical?

AMES: No…I mean, it'll be fiction so, whether or not one wants to think of my fiction as autobiographical. But the novel I have in mind is probably less autobiographical than most stuff I've done.

ME: So there's a chapter in What's Not To Love where your twelve year old son is asking to read your column…He's fourteen now. Has he read your writing?

AMES: He's read a few pieces, not much.

ME: It that your decision or..?

AMES: Well, I was just reading this thing by what's his name…Salmon Rushdie, in the New Yorker about how his son hasn't read his books and that most children of writers aren't that interested in their parents writing; they're more interested in them as parents. And I think that's the case with my son. But when he's older he can certainly read my stuff, but right now he's too young.

ME: So you have been kind of, 'no, not yet.'

AMES: Well, I'm not handing it to him: if he asked to read something I would try to choose something appropriate.

ME: What about your parents.

AMES: …They're just amazingly accepting.

ME: Did you start performing after you'd been writing for a while.

AMES: Yeah, the performing came later…I just sort of fell into it: I was at this artist's colony and I told these stories as kind of a performance, cause I didn't have anything to read. And from that I started doing it in New York quite a lot.

ME: Is it now a whole separate love for you?

AMES: I don't know about love (laughs), but it is like a whole separate thing I do…I mean I have kind of like a separate little career going as a performance artists…there's this theater that has me perform and, y'know, that's where I had my show, Oedipussy, which I write about in (What's Not to Love), and they want me to do another show. And, y'know, it's not easy, I mean it's like, y'know, probably harder than writing to get anywhere or make any kind of money at it.

ME: Do you have any advice for writers who read in front of people?

AMES: Well, when I tell stories, I don't read: kind of what I do is like Spalding Grey…I guess one thing that's always good is of course, is to go slow, is to project, but also like, when you read: visualize what it is you're reading, cause somehow that conveys to them…go slow with your own words..it'll be over before you know it.

ME: Is there anything you keep in mind when trying to be funny with writing or performing…is there a rule of being funny?

AMES: No…I don't…I guess…I ever…I don't ever…yeah…

ME: …the secrets of comedy?

AMES: I don't know what they are.