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Less (Winner of the Pulitzer Prize): A Novel (The Arthur Less Books, 1) Hardcover – July 18, 2017
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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
- Print length272 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLee Boudreaux Books
- Publication dateJuly 18, 2017
- Dimensions6.25 x 1 x 9.63 inches
- ISBN-109780316316125
- ISBN-13978-0316316125
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From the Publisher
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Less | Less is Lost | |
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Customer Reviews |
4.1 out of 5 stars
38,556
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4.2 out of 5 stars
2,920
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Price | $9.99$9.99 | $11.99$11.99 |
A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding | Less returns in an unforgettable road trip across America |
Editorial Reviews
Review
―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
"I recommend it with my whole heart."
―Ann Patchett
"A piquantly funny fifth novel."
―Entertainment Weekly
"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
"Dressed in his trademark blue suit, Less adorably butchers the German language, nearly falls in love in Paris, celebrates his birthday in the desert and, somewhere along the way, 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."―Book Page
"Greer's evocations of the places Arthur visits offer zesty travelogue pleasures"―Seattle Times
"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, starred review
"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."―Adam Haslett, author of Imagine Me Gone
"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."
―Armistead Maupin, author of Tales of the City
"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!"―Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad Love Story
"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."―Nell Zink, author of Mislaid and Nicotine
"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!"
―Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves
About the Author
Product details
- ASIN : 0316316121
- Publisher : Lee Boudreaux Books; First Edition (July 18, 2017)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 272 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780316316125
- ISBN-13 : 978-0316316125
- Item Weight : 1.04 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.25 x 1 x 9.63 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #229,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #300 in LGBTQ+ Literary Fiction (Books)
- #2,221 in Humorous Fiction
- #14,529 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Andrew Sean Greer is the bestselling author of seven works of fiction, including The Confessions of Max Tivoli, which was named a best book of 2004 by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune. He is the recipient of the Northern California Book Award, the California Book Award, the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the O Henry award for short fiction and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the New York Public Library. His novel Less won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and it's follow-up, Less Is Lost, is out Sept 2022. Greer lives in San Francisco and Milan.
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Many people, I think, fall into the trap of believing a “great” book cannot be funny. For a book to be considered worthy it must be ponderous and serious. It has to deal with “heavy’ issues. Well, Less deals with one of life’s heaviest issues: love. And it does so with humor.
Arthur Less, a gay novelist with a minor literary success to his credit, is about to turn 50, which is difficult enough, but he also has to deal with his former (much younger) lover’s marriage to someone else. Arthur can neither attend the wedding nor refuse to attend, so he searches through his collection of mail and takes out every invitation to a conference or award presentation he has received in the prior year and decides to accept them all. This takes him literally around the world to Mexico, Italy, France, Morocco, Japan, and India giving him an excuse not to have to see the love of his life say “I do” to someone else.
His travels bring him into contact with a number of “characters” while he deals with his memories of past loves, and the pain of losing his most recent lover, Freddy, to someone else. All these vignettes allow the reader to get a firmer grasp on Arthur Less as a person, and he turns out to be both enigmatic and endearing. The one trait that is clear is he truly loves FreddEdity. Truly, madly, deeply. His travels to avoid attending the marriage don’t allow him to avoid his feelings and memories.
Less has a satisfying ending (which I would never spoil), and that isn’t easy.
When you put four well-read, middle-aged, opinionated women together to discuss a book, it’s rare you get any kind of unanimity of opinion, but Less, the Pulitzer Prize winning novel, was the exception. We all rated it 5/5.
Many people, I think, fall into the trap of believing a “great” book cannot be funny. For a book to be considered worthy it must be ponderous and serious. It has to deal with “heavy’ issues. Well, Less deals with one of life’s heaviest issues: love. And it does so with humor.
Arthur Less, a gay novelist with a minor literary success to his credit, is about to turn 50, which is difficult enough, but he also has to deal with his former (much younger) lover’s marriage to someone else. Arthur can neither attend the wedding nor refuse to attend, so he searches through his collection of mail and takes out every invitation to a conference or award presentation he has received in the prior year and decides to accept them all. This takes him literally around the world to Mexico, Italy, France, Morocco, Japan, and India giving him an excuse not to have to see the love of his life say “I do” to someone else.
His travels bring him into contact with a number of “characters” while he deals with his memories of past loves, and the pain of losing his most recent lover, Freddy, to someone else. All these vignettes allow the reader to get a firmer grasp on Arthur Less as a person, and he turns out to be both enigmatic and endearing. The one trait that is clear is he truly loves Freddy. Truly, madly, deeply. His travels to avoid attending the marriage don’t allow him to avoid his feelings and memories.
Less has a satisfying ending (which I would never spoil), and that isn’t easy.
(Linda)
You could say it's a gay story. Others have. But really it's a love story, universal in its theme of love, loss, aging, triumph, acceptance and resolution. So please don't let that stop you from reading this wonderful, funny, heartbreaking book. Arthur Less is Everyman, or even Everywoman, who has ever been in love.
And the descriptive writing! A marvel of beautiful run on sentences dripping with similes and metaphors. I felt the narrator, revealed at the end of the book, literally drilled me into each new scene with machine gun speed and accuracy. Masterful!
(Barbara)
I was reading a piece in the LA Times by Quinn Cummings as she paid tribute to the great Neil Simon. As a 9-year-old she starred in the stage production of The Goodbye Girl with Marsha Mason as her mother. She remarked that “to be meaningful, comedy needs to be about discomfort, about being the outsider……..” And certainly Andrew Sean Greer succeeded when he wrote Less. The subtle humor made me smile throughout the book, from his backwards laugh (ah ah ah) to his brilliant blue suit to the bumbling happenings in each of the countries traveled. And in each of those countries he began to find himself.
I loved the beautifully written prose from the very beginning of the book. How can you not love this: “By his forties, all he has managed to grow is a gentle sense of himself, akin to the transparent carapace of a soft-shelled crab.” The metaphors and similes throughout the book were memorable as were his reminiscences of having lived with a genius in his early adulthood.
My friend Barbara once explained to me that the most difficult part about writing a story is writing the ending, and after having read hundreds of books I can see that few really achieve this well. Greer is an exception because the ending here is perfect.
(Marianne)
My number one requirement to rank a book this high is that I have to love the main character. Not just like - love enough to want them to be my best friend. That’s how I feel about Arthur Less. But the author also makes me fall in love with a myriad of other fascinating characters. I love Freddy and Robert and even despicable Carlos. I love the boy in the airport and the pastor in Thiruvananthapuram and the hostess in Kyoto.
Is this a novel or a travelogue? Yes and yes. As we travel with our sad, down-on-his-luck, gay writer, we get to see the world through his very unique eyes. And what a vision. Each line, no matter how irrelevant, becomes a descriptive narrative that is some of the finest writing I’ve encountered. Biplane dragonflies dogfights - indeed!
There is a sequel- I am starting it today.
In reality, it's more of a lesser "Eat, Pray, Love" with an intellectual gay character and a lighthearted touch. While Elisabeth Gilbert comes across as a natural, intense, brutally honest writer, Greer seems to be the opposite type. Deliberate and mild and self-conscious, pushing all the right social and literary buttons while pretending to humbly avoid them. Arthur Less is an empty and average human being, desolate after a long casual affair with a younger man ended, and, with it, a decade of his living at the surface of life...The style is a mix of fresh metaphors and beautiful sentences, with some passages that felt contrived and unnecessary. Some chapters were quite good, at least half were dull. The substance never dives deep; the hero stays on the debonair surface, he is always conveniently lucky, like the author who received a Pulitzer for a modest book that could have been easily passed unnoticed.
The Pulitzer is going the PC way of the Oscars: searching minority works to award even if they are just so and so, as a nod toward that community as a whole. Unlike "The Sympathizer," my favorite Pulitzer in recent years, this novel failed to make a great impact on me. I skipped many pages in the second half, just to see how the novel ended. It's the type of book where if you remove half of the pages or chapters the "whole" remains pretty much the same. Since the days of Aristotle's Poetics, this is the biggest faux-pas of literary composition, but either the Pulitzer Board is lowering the standards to ensure it sends the "right" message, or the Pulitzer Board members themselves fail to know the basics these days and whoever appointed them had lowered the standards.
One of my most favorite authors of all times, Oscar Wilde, was gay, therefore I was expecting more!
Top reviews from other countries
Il protagonista, goffo ma non troppo, ingenuo ma non stupido, esce vincitore da varie lotte intestine nel mondo degli artisti gay statunitensi dopo varie avventure in paesi diversi descritti dall'autore con originalità e grande sense of humour.
Uno dei meriti di questo scrittore è di non essere mai troppo descrittivo nè volgare nelle scene intime fra i vari personaggi.
Estoy verdaderamente encantado, no puedo dejar de pensar en este libro, quiero leerlo mil veces, me fascinó.