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Book Reviewed by:A breakout romantic comedy by the bestselling author of five critically acclaimed novels.
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.
Excerpt
Less
From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad.
Look at him: seated primly on the hotel lobby's plush round sofa, blue suit and white shirt, legs knee-crossed so that one polished loafer hangs free of its heel. The pose of a young man. His slim shadow is, in fact, still that of his younger self, but at nearly fifty he is like those bronze statues in public parks that, despite one lucky knee rubbed raw by schoolchildren, discolor beautifully until they match the trees. So has Arthur Less, once pink and gold with youth, faded like the sofa he sits on, tapping one finger on his knee and staring at the grandfather clock. The long patrician nose perennially burned by the sun (even in cloudy New York October). The washed-out blond hair too long on the top, too short on the sides—portrait of his grandfather. Those same watery blue eyes. Listen: you might hear anxiety ticking, ticking, ticking away as he stares at that clock, which unfortunately is not ticking ...
Pulitzer Prize
2018
Less is also a love story with many bittersweet moments. Thoughts of Freddy's marriage haunt Arthur, even as he takes a lover in Berlin and comes up with a plan to re-write his new novel, after his publisher rejects it. As he completes his global journey and comes to terms with "the tragi-comic business of being alive" this story wraps up with a warm-hearted and fitting conclusion. Overall, this is a charming tale, very well told...continued
Full Review
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(Reviewed by Kate Braithwaite).
Adam Haslett, author of Imagine Me Gone
Treat yourself to this book. I missed subway stops. I doubled over in laughter. I experienced more pure reading pleasure than I had in ages. It is hilarious, and wise, and abundantly fun. Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City
I adore this book. It's funny, piquant, bittersweet and so achingly observant about the vanity of writers that it made me squirm in recognition. I'll probably read it again very soon. Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad Love Story
Marvelously, unexpectedly, endearingly funny. A love story focused on the erroneous belief that the second half of life will pale in comparison to the first. Guess what? It won't! Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
A fast and rocketing read with everything I want from a story -moments of high humor, moments of genuine wisdom, sharp insights and gorgeous images. A wonderful, wonderful book! Nell Zink, author of Mislaid and Nicotine
The most deftly funny romantic comedy I've read in years. If you have a sentimental bone in your body (I have 206), the ending will make you sob little tears of joy.With his portrait of Arthur Less, a lovable — if somewhat hapless — man on a trip round the world, Andrew Sean Greer gives more than a nod to Mark Twain's 1869 satire, The Innocents Abroad. Less, a middle-aged gay man, needs to radically re-write his own novel about "a middle-aged gay man walking about San Francisco." This self-conscious reflection on the concept of a gay character prompted me to recall some of the diverse LGBT characters I have known and loved over the years.
Stephen Gordon is the hero of Radclyffe Hall's classic, The Well of Loneliness (1928). This story of an upper class girl who realizes from an early age that she is attracted to women was banned in Britain after an obscenity trial. Stephen, given a boy'...
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