Book Review: Less

Bought at the Strand for $10 and read mostly on an 10-hour flight from Istanbul to Frankfurt to JFK. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize which was a motivator for me to read it. That and its brevity (I was looking for an absorbing read during a vacation.) Amusing and detailed, this novel follows a gay white male about to turn 50, taking stock of his life as he travels around the world on a series of opportune writing assignments and left-handed invitations from friends of friends, all to avoid the wedding of his ex. Arthur Less is endearing and charming. It's hard to dislike him but it's equally hard to muster any sympathy for him. Ironically, his latest novel has been rejected by his long-time publisher for those very reasons--the protagonist has first-world problems. I mean how many of us would kill to have Less's kind of life--a nice house in San Francisco, a first marriage to a world famous poet, and a trip around the world, gratis! So Greer is making fun of himself. When Less turns his novel into a comedy, that supposedly unblocks him creatively and emotionally. The writing is funny and strong with wonderful descriptions of the various locales in Europe, Africa, and Asia. The opening chapter is particularly funny with its comedy of errors as Less prepares to interview a famous sci-fi author (probably modeled on Games of Thrones' George R.R. Martin) who is suffering from food poisoning. Funny and fast and eventually I warmed up to Less but I didn't feel badly for him.