' I recommend it with my whole heart' Ann Patchett ' You will sob little tears of joy' Nell Zink WINNER OF THE PULITZER PRIZE FOR FICTION 2018 Ultimately, Less has a hard time fitting in anywhere.The Pulitzer prize-winning novel about a failed writer trying to escape his problems by traveling abroad. Occasionally, he is mistaken for a Dutch man at other times for another writer with the same name, except that the other Arthur Less happens to be Black. He’s charged with looking after the wheezing dog of a cantankerous older writer, and struggles to keep control of a campervan nicknamed Rosina. As a gay man walking into a bar in Alabama, he’s asking for trouble, and growing a handlebar moustache doesn’t exactly allow him to pass incognito.

His journey is both problematical and farcical.

Freddy is absent from the plot because a sudden financial crisis necessitates Less going on another road trip, this one across the US. Work is OK, he’s just been asked to judge a fancy literary prize, and he’s happily in love with a younger man, Freddy, who narrates the book with an omniscience that belies the fact that much of the narrative takes place away from him. In Less Is Lost, life for Arthur Less – still the perpetual midlist writer – is actually looking pretty good. Nevertheless, the sequel remains a problematical experiment. Armistead Maupin, Dave Eggers and Ann Patchett are among his fans, and John Updike raved about Greer’s early novels. Possessed of a certain melancholy, Less was a serious novel that made you laugh, by turns witty and lyrical, gently skewering the absurdities and artifices of the literary world. It’s about time,” went The Washington Post headline reporting Greer’s win. “Finally, a comic novel gets a Pulitzer Prize. It told the story of a hapless middle-aged gay writer, Arthur Less, greedily accepting invitations to any and every literary event around the world in the hope of escaping the complications of his own inner life. This is hard to believe, for it was an improbably charming book. He points out that Less had a hard time finding a home and was turned down by 12 UK publishers before one finally took a punt. The pride he feels is much deserved: Greer had previously spent two decades as a well-reviewed but never quite bestselling author who had occasion to wonder, at times, “whether I’d ever have another book published again”. It glints as Greer turns it this way and that. “See,” he adds, holding it aloft, “it’s gold.” Clearly, when an author is the recipient of an award as fancy as the Pulitzer – Less won it in 2018 – the publishers have the budget to be as fancy as they like for their follow-up.

This,” says Andrew Sean Greer, pointing over his shoulder, index finger extended, “is my new book.” He turns to pick up the US version of his new novel, Less Is Lost, the sequel to his 2017 global bestseller, Less.

Andrew sean