Less
Andrew Sean Greer, 2017
Little, Brown and Co.
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316316125
Summary
Winner, 2018 Pulitzer Prize
Who says you can't run away from your problems?
You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail: your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else.
You can't say yes — it would be too awkward — and you can't say no — it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world.
QUESTION: How do you arrange to skip town?
ANSWER: You accept them all.
What would possibly go wrong?
Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India, and encounter, on a desert island in the Arabian Sea, the last person on Earth he wants to face.
Somewhere in there: he will turn fifty. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last. Because, despite all these mishaps, missteps, misunderstandings and mistakes, Less is, above all, a love story.
A scintillating satire of the American abroad, a rumination on time and the human heart, a bittersweet romance of chances lost, by an author the New York Times has hailed as "inspired, lyrical," "elegiac," "ingenious," as well as "too sappy by half," Less shows a writer at the peak of his talents raising the curtain on our shared human comedy. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—November 21, 1970
• Where—Washington, DC, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.F.A., University of Montana
• Currently—lives in San Francisco, California
Andrew Sean Greer is an American novelist and short story writer. Born in Washington D.C., he is the son, and identical twin, of two scientists. He attended Brown University, where he was the commencement speaker at his own graduation, with his off-the-cuff remarks criticizing Brown's admissions policies setting off a near riot.
Following graduation Greer lived in New York, working in various jobs — as a chauffeur, theater tech, television extra — to support his habit as an unsuccessful writer. After several years, he headed to graduate school at the University of Montana in Missoula where he received an M.F.A. From Missoula, he moved to Seattle and two years later to San Francisco where he now lives.
Writing
While in San Francisco, Greer began publishing his short fiction in magazines; over the years his stories have appeared in Esquire, Paris Review, New Yorker, among others, and they have been anthologized in The Book of Other People, and The PEN/ O. Henry Prize Stories 2009. His collection of stories, How It Was for Me, was released in 2000.
He published his first novel, The Path of Minor Planets, in 2001 and since then has had a string of generally well-regarded, if not always top-selling books: The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2003), perhaps his best-known; The Story of a Marriage (2008), The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells (2013); and Less (2017). (Adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 7/12/2013.)
Book Reviews
Less is the funniest, smartest and most humane novel I've read since Tom Rachman's 2010 debut, The Imperfectionists.… Greer writes sentences of arresting lyricism and beauty. His metaphors come at you like fireflies.… Like Arthur, Andrew Sean Greer's Less is excellent company. It's no less than bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful.
Chrstopher Buckley - New York Times Book Review
Greer is an exceptionally lovely writer, capable of mingling humor with sharp poignancy.… Brilliantly funny.… Greer's narration, so elegantly laced with wit, cradles the story of a man who loses everything: his lover, his suitcase, his beard, his dignity.
Ron Charles, Washington Post
Greer's novel is philosophical, poignant, funny and wise, filled with unexpected turns.… Although Greer is gifted and subtle in comic moments, he's just as adept at ruminating on the deeper stuff. His protagonist grapples with aging, loneliness, creativity, grief, self-pity and more.
San Francisco Chronicle
Greer, the author of wonderful, heartfelt novels including The Confessions of Max Tivoli, The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells and The Story of a Marriage, shows he has another powerful weapon in his arsenal: comedy. And who doesn't need a laugh right about now?
Miami Herald
Greer elevates Less' picaresque journey into a wise and witty novel. This is no Eat, Pray Love story of touristic uplift, but rather a grand travelogue of foibles, humiliations and self-deprecation, ending in joy, and a dollop of self-knowledge.
National Book Review
(Starred review.) Greer … writes beautifully, but his occasionally Faulknerian sentences are unnecessary. He is entirely successful, though, in the authorial sleights of hand that… [ results] at the end in a wonderful surprise.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) [A] hilarious and touching novel.… Greer is both clever and compassionate…and while the book focuses on gay men and their relationships, the search for love and meaning is universal. —James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.
Library Journal
Dressed in his trademark blue suit, Less…discovers something new and fragile about the passing of time, about the coming and going of love, and what it means to be the fool of your own narrative. It's nothing less than wonderful.
BookPage
(Starred review.) Less is perhaps Greer's finest yet.… A comic yet moving picture of an American abroad.… Less is a wondrous achievement, deserving an even larger audience than Greer's bestselling The Confessions of Max Tivoli
Booklist
Facing his erstwhile boyfriend's wedding to another man, his 50th birthday, and his publisher's rejection of his latest manuscript, a miserable midlist novelist heads for the airport.… Nonstop puns on the character's surname aside, this is a very funny and occasionally wise book.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
We'll add publisher questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, please use our LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for Less … then take off on your own:
1. Have you ever had days, weeks, years, like what Arthur Less is feeling — times when nothing, absolutely nothing, seems to be going your way? What's your solution?
2. Everyone points to the books laugh-out-loud humor. What do you find particularly funny — dialogue, Arthur's haplessness and pratfalls, random observations, the entire tone of the book?
3. How would you describe Arthur? Are you sympathetic to him, or is he primarily a self-pitying guy in midlife crisis? Does he exhibit any humanity or is he too self-indulgent to connect with others? Or do you find yourself falling and rooting for him? Does your attitude toward him change during the course of the novel?
4. Talk about the writing seminar Arthur gives in Berlin — his inventiveness in attempting to get students to fall in love with literature.
5. What do you think of the consolation his former lover/mentor offers him during the phone call from Japan? Is turning 50 all that bad (for those who've been there, done that)?
6. So at the end of his peregrinations, what has Arthur Less come to understand about his life and life in general?
7. Finally, were you surprised by the big reveal at the end?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)