With the touching and very funny story of Arthur Less, author Andrew Sean Greer (The Confessions of Max Tivoli) takes readers on an around-the-world tour, leaping from Mexico City to Berlin, from Marrakech to Kyoto, in a grand midlife adventure of the heart.

Gay novelist Less—like anyone with such a name—is a hapless, dreamy hero, a man straight out of a James Thurber story. He's known more for his relationship with a much older, Pulitzer-winning poet than for his own work. Now, his most recent lover is getting married, and in an attempt to avoid the upcoming nuptials, Less has decided to accept every literary invitation on his desk. It just so happens that Less is about to turn 50, and his latest novel will soon be rejected by his publisher.

Dressed in his trademark blue suit, Less adorably butchers the German language, nearly falls in love in Paris, celebrates his birthday in the desert and, somewhere along the way, discovers something new and fragile about the passing of time, about the coming and going of love, and what it means to be the fool of your own narrative. It's nothing less than wonderful.

 

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It's bad enough that midlist novelist Arthur Less is approaching his 50th birthday, but now his much younger ex-boyfriend is getting married. To avoid the wedding, Arthur accepts invitations, however dubious, from literary events worldwide. From the author of the admirable The Confessions of Max Tivoli and The Impossible Life of Greta Wells; with a 50,000-copy first printing.

This hilarious and touching novel follows Arthur Less, a gay man, as he travels around the world in order to avoid attending the wedding of his former lover. The wedding invitation was the final realization for Arthur that he never should have broken up with Freddy, and as Arthur's 50th birthday approaches, he realizes he may be alone forever. Arthur is a novelist, and although his publisher turned down his latest work, he is engaged in literary activities such as receiving an award, speaking at a conference, and teaching writing in such locations as New York City, Mexico, and Germany. He also travels to Morocco and rides a camel out into the desert. All along the way, there are wacky scenes of wrong directions taken, comic misunderstandings, and language barriers left standing. VERDICT Greer (The Confessions of Max Tivoli; The Impossible Life of Greta Wells) is both clever and compassionate as he steers Arthur through this rough period in his life, and while the book focuses on gay men and their relationships, the search for love and meaning is universal. [See Prepub Alert, 1/28/17.]—James Coan, SUNY at Oneonta Lib.

In Greer's wistful new novel, a middle-aged writer accepts literary invitations around the world—making his way from San Francisco to New York, Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan—so that he will have an excuse not to attend the wedding of a long-time lover. Arthur Less is not known primarily for his own work but for his lengthy romantic association with a Pulitzer Prize–winning author, an older man who was married to a woman when their liaison began, and he believes himself to be the butt of many cosmic jokes and that he is "less than" in most equations. This is partially proven true, but not entirely. And even in Less's mediocrity, when aided by a certain amount of serendipity (and displayed by the author with ironic humor), he affects people. Greer (The Confessions of Max Tivoli), an O'Henry-winning author, writes beautifully, but his occasionally Faulknerian sentences are unnecessary. He is entirely successful, though, in the authorial sleights of hand that make the narrator fade into the background—only to have an identity revealed at the end in a wonderful surprise. Agent: Lynn Nesbit, Janklow & Nesbit Associates. (July)