Less

A Novel

Andrew Sean Greer

Arthur Less is a working writer who’s yet to pen a best-seller. He’s gay, almost 50, and his ex-lover is about to get married. There’s only one reasonable thing to do: take off on a trip around the world.

What Arthur doesn’t expect, however, is that his far-flung adventures will be the key to finding his way home.

Our hero’s escapist trip takes him to a series of increasingly dubious writing events around the globe: from San Francisco to Mexico, Italy, Germany, France, Morocco, India, Japan, and back to the city by the bay. He’s no smooth operator, and his escapades include falling in love and out of windows, weathering a desert sandstorm, and being judged by a group of precocious high school students.

Along the way, we meet his friends, acquaintances, and paramours, including his arch-nemesis, a series of acquaintances that change Arthur’s life, and his first love and lifelong friend Robert. Everywhere he goes, Arthur inadvertently charms the people he meets, and, eventually, he learns how to love himself.

While the prose of this sweet, wistful, funny, life-affirming novel is light and sparkly, it’s equally intelligent and is emotionally, unerringly true. The thoughtful characters live and breathe on the page, loving each other and making messy mistakes.

In 2018, Andrew Sean Greer and Less won the Pulitzer Prize: ‘It’s not that I’m not aware of the horrible way the world is, he said in an interview with The Guardian. ‘It’s that I can’t bear it. So I wrote a book that tackles that, but is about joy.’

This is one of those exceptional books that might inspire you to flip it over when you reach the last page, so you can start all over again at the beginning.

He kisses — how do I explain it? Like someone in love. Like he has nothing to lose. Like someone who has just learned a foreign language and can use only the present tense and only the second person. Only now, only you. There are some men who have never been kissed like that. There are some men who discover, after Arthur Less, that they never will be again. — Andrew Sean Greer

*Pssst… this interview with Andrew Sean Greer in The New Yorker is great.

Strong Sense of Place is a listener-supported podcast. If you like the work we do, you can help make it happen by joining our Patreon! That'll unlock bonus content for you, too — including Mel's secret book reviews and Dave's behind-the-scenes notes for the latest Two Truths and a Lie.

no spoilers. ever.

We'll share enough detail to help you decide if a book is for you, but we'll never ruin plot twists or give away the ending.