Funeral Platter, Ames’s kaleidoscopic follow-up to his award-winning novel Buffalo Lockjaw, might be the literary offspring of Etgar Keret and Amelia Gray we did not know we wanted. Ames manages to locate humor everywhere—from the absurd rituals of courtship to the burdens of American manhood to the bizarre things we do out of familial love. Amesplayfully ducks expectations offering a fun house world where your parents spend their retirement cheerfully  caged and your sister cuddles up each night with the burnt log she named Marilyn.

Greg Ames’ debut novel, Buffalo Lockjaw won the 2009 Book of the Year Award from the New Atlantic Independent Booksellers Association (NAIBA) and was met with critical acclaim. His work has appeared in the Best American Nonrequired Reading, McSweeney's, Southern Review, The Sunmagazine, and Fiction International. He has been shortlisted for the Pushcart Prize. He splits his time between Brooklyn, New York and Hamilton, New York, where he is an assistant professor at Colgate University.