Less Is Lost

The good-hearted, hapless “Minor American Novelist” Arthur Less is back, and this reader couldn’t be happier to spend time with him again. Temporarily apart from his lover, Freddy (whose voice is heard throughout the novel), and in desperate need of money, Less says yes to every offer that comes his way, sending him on another hilarious journey, this time through New Mexico, Texas, the deep South, and then up the Eastern Seaboard. “It is hard to picture our hero in these carriage-wheel-chandeliered, sawdust-floored, spittooned surroundings. To be honest, it is hard to picture Arthur Less in America at all. His awkwardness abroad seems natural; here, it seems vexing.” In the earlier prize-winning novel Less, Arthur traveled internationally; now, Southerners seem to think that he is from the Netherlands, recognizing only that there is something odd and other about him. Greer describes America as Arthur experiences it: sometimes with dread, often with humor, and frequently with charming innocence. “Why did no one tell me life could be this?” he thought while watching a musical that filled him with awe and promise. Commenting on the writing life with wit and gentle jabs, Less is Lost fills us with an appreciation for the odd and the offbeat. “Such is love,” as Freddy often comments on these pages. Indeed.