Less (AdN)

Less is the first novel in the Less series by award-winning best-selling American author, Andrew Sean Greer. Quickly approaching fifty, Arthur Less is dismayed to be invited to the wedding of a former lover. Attending is out of the question: Arthur Less devises a "cats cradle of junkets" that will ensure he is out of the country and very busy while Freddy Pelu marries Tom Dennis in Sonoma, CA.

First on his itinerary is New York City, interviewing an author of a sci-fi series with a cult following. This is preceded by a lunch with his agent, the outcome of which is a shock: his new novel will need a rewrite if it is to attract a publisher.

From there, Mexico City (an interview about his famous lover, poet Robert Brownburn), Turin (nominated for a book award), Berlin (teaching a five-week course), a short, unplanned stop-over in Paris (catch up with a friend), Morocco (to celebrate the birthday of a friend of a friend, and his own), India (a writing retreat, to fix his novel?), and Japan (to review some restaurant meals).

But at each destination, and often, during his travels, Arthur is overwhelmed by reminiscences, reveries, flashbacks, courtesy of those he meets, old friends and new acquaintances, and of little incidents that occur. Much as he would rather not, he recalls not just past lovers, but those he truly loved (and perhaps still does?), and fails to scrub Freddy from his mind and heart.

It's on his fiftieth birthday that he is blessed with an epiphany about his apparently unwanted novel, and it's a delightful irony that it just about describes what Greer has written: "What if it isn't a poignant, wistful novel at all? What if it isn't the story of a sad middle-aged man on a tour of his hometown, remembering the past and fearing the future; a peripateticism of humiliation and regret; the erosion of a single male soul? What if it isn't even sad?"

Greer's protagonist might remind some readers of those that David Nicholls creates: inept, accident-prone, awkward, subject to "those writerly humiliations planned by the universe to suck at the bones of minor artists like him", whose "brain sits before its cash register again, charging him for old shames as if he has not paid before".

And towards the end, his friend/rival tells him "You are the most absurd person I've ever met. You've bumbled through every moment and been a fool; you've misunderstood and misspoken and tripped over absolutely everything and everyone in your path, and you've won. And you don't even realize it."

The story is related by an unnamed narrator whose identity gradually becomes clear. Greer's plot, characters and prose are entertaining and enjoyable, and it's no surprise that this novel was awarded the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Literature. Fans will be pleased to know they can look forward to a sequel, Less Is Lost.