Buffalo Lockjaw: A Novel
by
Greg Ames
Author . Discussion Questions .
Reviews
About
this Guide
The following
author biography, critical praise and list of questions about this book are
intended as resources to aid individual readers and book groups who would
like to learn more about the author and this book. We hope that this guide
will provide you a starting place for discussion, and suggest a variety of
perspectives from which you might approach this book.
About this Book
James Fitzroy isn’t doing so well. Though his old friends in Buffalo believe his life in New York City is a success, in fact he writes ridiculous taglines for a greeting card company. Now he’s coming home on Thanksgiving to visit his aging father and dying mother, and unlike other holidays, he’s not sure how this one is going to end. Buffalo Lockjaw introduces a fresh new voice in American fiction.
About the Author
Greg Ames lives in Brooklyn. His work has appeared in the Best American
Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney's, Fiction International, and The
Southern Review. He has taught fiction at Brooklyn College and at
Binghamton University. Buffalo Lockjaw won the 2009 NAIBA Book of the
Year Award. It is his first novel.
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Discussion Questions
1. Who is the hero of the book? James? Rodney? Ellen? Why do you say this?
2. Is this a funny or a sad novel, or does it straddle the line between the two? How does the author achieve this?
3. What role does religion play in the Fitzroy family?
4. Buffalo is a character in the novel. Have you had experience with the Rust Belt cities in the United States? Do you get a sense of this particular city, or does it remind you of another city like this?
5. What does James want? Does he get what he wants? This can be answered in a number of ways. You can speak about his central conflict or you can speak about his broader wishes, desires, fears, concerns, etc. What stands in the way of his getting what he wants? What seems to hold him back?
6. Does the novel reach a peak of intensity (climax)? Where? Is the conflict resolved in the end?
7. Can a murder ever be considered an act of kindness and/or love? Are there any circumstances under which a son, daughter, husband, or wife would be justified in killing a parent or spouse?
8. Were you surprised by the ending? What do you think happened? Is it better or worse that the reader doesn’t know exactly what happened?
9. Why do you think the author ends the book where he does? Why conclude the book with that particular scene? What does it suggest to you about James’s future life?
10. Would you recommend this book to your friends? How would you describe it to them?
Reviews
“Buffalo Lockjaw, like its charming, bitter screw-up of a narrator, reaches finally for larger meaning, and succeeds. . . . A brazen and tender book about a city and a scene, a mother and a son, and the beauty and pain of several kinds of love.”
—Sam Lipsyte, author of Home Land
“Ames knows how to build up the world with a light hand while still getting to the complicated and painful ways we muddle through. Funny, fresh, and generous.”
—Aimee Bender, author of The Girl in the Flammable Skirt
“In Buffalo Lockjaw, love of one’s parents and love of one’s hometown mix powerfully with the mad undertow of loss that seems as inevitable in life as gravity.”
—Jonathan Ames, author of Wake Up, Sir!
“Greg Ames, one of the funniest writers I’ve ever read, faces dead-on the most terrifying event in a person’s life. Buffalo Lockjaw is frightening, heart-rending, and beautiful. . . . I didn’t want it to end.”
—Poe Ballantine, author of Things I Like About America
“Greg Ames manages to evoke place and expose the complexities of character in a single swift phrase. It is a funny-sad, heartbreaking, hypnotically readable debut.”
—Adrienne Miller, author of The Coast of Akron
