A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of "arresting lyricism and beauty" (The New York Times Book Review).
WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE
National Bestseller
A New York Times Notable Book of 2017
A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017
A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017
Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award, and the California Book Award
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.
"I could not love LESS more."--Ron Charles, The Washington Post
"Andrew Sean Greer's Less is excellent company. It's no less than bedazzling, bewitching and be-wonderful."--Christopher Buckley, The New York Times Book Review
A unique piece of literature
"Less by Andrew Sean Greer is a loving reflection on life - which may seem like an odd description given its plot. Arthur Less, once a promising writer now turned a mediocre novelist, runs away from his ex-boyfriend’s wedding invitation in the most exorbitant way possible: by patching together a laundry list of travel plans comprising of invitations, lecturing jobs, travel article, and anything else that will get him away from the wedding. As Less travels around the world, the narrator gives us incremental anecdotes about how Less became Less. The stories of his wild youth and of his fear of everything; the stories of being surrounded with geniuses despite his own mediocrity; and the story of him and his lover, Freddy. The narrator is forgiving, honest, and incredibly funny. Less is a book that gives you back the warm perspective on life. Greer’s writing is a unique blend of artistic and witty. The way Greer paints the picture of how people fall in love, regret something that happened decades ago, and reflect fondly on old acquaintances will make you nostalgic about a time you’ve never lived."
