Book Review: Less by Andrew Sean Green

Reviewer: Alan Chin
Publisher: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company (May 2018)

Pages: 261★★★★★

A Magical Adventure

Arthur Less is a little-known novelist about to turn fifty. He receives a wedding invitation from his ex-boyfriend of nine years, a younger man who he is still in love with. He decides it would be too painful to attend the wedding, yet if he doesn’t it will be an admission of defeat to his ex and to all their friends. What to do? Accept a handful of half-baked literary events scattered around the globe so he’ll be out of town when the wedding occurs. What could go wrong?

The answer, Arthur Less finds as he journeys to Mexico, Italy, Germany, Morocco, India, and Japan, is everything!

A romance, a satire on Americans abroad, a musing on success, aging, and the human heart. Lessshows a man blundering through a low point in his life, and along the way he continually raises the curtain on our shared human comedy.

Being both an aging writer and a world traveler, I became engrossed in this Pulitzer Prize winning novel on page one, and had to slow my reading because I wanted to savor the experience for as long as possible. I can’t remember the last time I’ve enjoyed a book this much. Greer seamlessly blends humor with sharp poignancy. The writing is elegantly laced with wit, as much as the story is fortified with wonderfully interesting characters.  

Less goes on my shelve containing all the beloved books I read over and over.