In his native Delaware, Less' sister awaits him, possibly with the father who abandoned them both, and, farther north, his partner. Greer's a master of the picaresque, deftly moving his protagonist from a seedy, David Lynch-esque desert bar through the flatlands of Texas to a Southern theater troupe. From his New England perch, Freddy narrates hilarious, cinematic scenes that include affectionate if campy portraits of Arthur: 'Look at his thinning hair wind-whipped into the stiff peak of a blond meringue, his delicate lips, sharpened nose, and elongated chin recalling Viking invaders of the Bayeux Tapestry, as white as a white man can get.' He reverts to a familiar strategy: he'll canvass the nation for paychecks in a camper named Rosina, accompanied by a pug, Dolly, only now within 'this foreign world, his own country.'Īrthur treks across three time zones to a Maine rendezvous with his partner, Freddy Pelu, an academic (who'd called off his wedding). He could lose his homey San Francisco apartment. After the taxing death of his friend and first lover, an elderly poet, Arthur faces a mountain of debt. 'Less Is Lost' picks up just months later. In 'Less' the middle-aged protagonist stared down his demons - and his former boyfriend's impending nuptials - by exiting east, New York to Europe to Africa to Japan, accepting invitations to conferences, literary retreats and a lucrative magazine profile. You can make anyone burst into tears, but trying to get a laugh is murder.' I recalled this truism as I read Andrew Sean Greer's technically accomplished, wildly entertaining 'Less Is Lost ,' the sequel to his Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, 'Less.' Like its predecessor, the new novel is a feat of wit and brio, tougher than it looks. While scarcely an original observation, actor Sir Michael Caine still nailed it in 2017 when he said, 'Comedy is harder to do than drama.

Andrew greer less is lost