Andrew Sean Greer won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for fiction with Less, the humorous and touching novel of a man though a mid-fifties crisis. Witty, engaging, surprising - whatever the criteria for winning a Pulitzer, Less deserved it.
Arthur Less receives news that Freddy, his ex-longtime boyfriend is getting married, and he is invited to the wedding. Many years his senior, Arthur wants to avoid seeing his old friends, lest they pity his being alone. A writer, he decides to accept every invitation for literary or speaking events in his pile of mail, taking him to Mexico, India, Italy, Morocco, Germany and Japan while the wedding happens.
Setting off, he does make it around the world but with constant and surprising twists on the way.
A love story, a rumination of aging and love lost, and a satire of travelling abroad, Arthur Less will not return the same as he left, and perhaps his future will be wrapped up in a beautiful beau.
I loved it and highly recommend it.
It's rare to read a novel so identifiable, funny, poignant, the whole package. A great read.
2017 / Tradeback/ 261 pages
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