Less

Travelling Heart   

Arthur Less, the protagonist of Andrew Sean Greer’s bestselling novel,Less, that won the Pulitzer Prize and many others, may be a middling writer, but is admirably aware of his shortcomings. When his latest novel is turned down by his publisher, he is disappointed and wonders what he did wrong.  Is his writing too poignant, as his agent alleged, or not gay enough, as another successful writer points out.

Later in the novel, he tells a female travelling companion, “It was about a middle-aged gay man walking around San Francisco. And, you know, his … his sorrows … ” The woman says, “A white middle-aged American man walking around with his white middle-aged American sorrows? It’s a little hard to feel sorry for a guy like that.”

Arthur Less is a gay white middle-aged American man, who seems to dare anyone to feel sorry for him. No matter what travails he goes through, he comes out unscathed somehow, and endears himself even more to the reader. When his younger boyfriend, Freddy, plans to get married to another man, Arthur cannot bear to attend the wedding and feel people’s pitying gaze on him, so he accepts all kinds of junkets offered to writers and embarks on a series of trips out of the country, just to have a valid excuse to escape. He also does not want to be alone on his fiftieth birthday that is coming up soon.

Less is described as “an author too old to be fresh and too young to be rediscovered, one who never sits next to anyone on a plane who has heard of his books,” but even he has one bestseller to his name, that makes him eligible for speaking and teaching assignments, seminars and awards-- “the crazy quilt of a writer’s life: warm enough, though it never quite covers the toes.”

Greer’s gentle satire makes fun of the literary world and the quirks of authors, while his protagonist is refreshingly free of the slightest nasty streak. The places he visits, the people he meets and the adventures he has make up the very enjoyable novel.

Fortunately or unfortunately for Less, the biggest achievement of his life has been his past relationship with a great poet, Robert Brownburn, and through him, a peripheral involvement with the Russian River School, that is suddenly going through a resurgence.

Mexico, Berlin, Paris, Morocco, Japan and even India figure on Less’s itinerary. In India he is booked into what he believes is a seaside writer’s retreat, but turns out to be Catholic mission in Thiruvananthapuram. While he hopes to rework his novel in peace, he is thrust into the noise (three places of worship blare through the day) and endless bustle of the town.

What could have been a tragedy about mediocrity and heartbreak, turns out to be a comedy about a man who bumbles through life with such charming innocence that a rival actually envies him for having “the best life of anyone I know.”

Less:

By Andrew Sean Greer

Publisher:  Lee Boudreaux Book/Little, Brown

Pages: 263