All the globetrotting in “Less” set a path toward a happily ever after. But the truly remarkable thing about “Less” winning the Pulitzer isn’t that it’s a comedy it is that, at heart, it’s a romance, a genre that faces an even rougher road with prize juries. So he’s compelled to take gigs that are respectable but a tick diminishing for a would-be famous author: judging a literary prize writing a magazine profile in the Southwest supervising a musical version of one of his stories in the Southeast taking a speaking tour up the Atlantic coast. After the death of his former longtime lover Robert, a Pulitzer Prize-winning poet, Arthur learns that probate court is dunning him for years of back rent in Robert’s San Francisco home. This time, Less’ travels are restricted to the United States, with Arthur making a mad cross-country dash as privation chases his heels. Early on we are promised “a donkey, a pug, a whale, and a moose.” In due time the full menagerie arrives. Take an uncertain man, a “middle-aged gay white novelist nobody’s ever heard of,” and put him in a host of places he’s uncomfortable in, especially when he’s uncomfortable everywhere, and some amount of hilarity is bound to ensue. it’s one that allows for plenty of invention and flexibility. But if Greer is just reapplying the “Less” formula - insecure, weak-selling, whirlwind trip, etc. “ Less Is Lost” is a familiar-feeling sequel to its predecessor, which seems to bode ill for its prospects. And it’s a pretty good punch line now, because Greer not only won the Pulitzer but has in fact written again. The punch line there was that Arthur desperately wanted to win one of those prizes anyway.
“You win a prize, and it’s all over,” a poet tells Arthur.
Coincidentally, among the targets of Greer’s gentle ribbing was the Pulitzer Prize itself. (Ask Gary Shteyngart or Nell Zink, Sam Lipsyte and so on.) But “Less” was exceedingly well made, a witty tale about Arthur Less, a middle-age, insecure, weak-selling gay literary novelist who hits the eject button on his life after a breakup to take a whirlwind trip around the world. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.Īndrew Sean Greer surprised a lot of observers when he won the Pulitzer Prize in fiction for his 2017 novel, “Less.” Comic novels generally don’t do well on the major awards circuit.
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