Less is Lost by Andrew Sean Greer; Little, Brown and Company; 272 pages; $29.00
Because Less is Lost follows the Pulitzer-prize winning novel Less, the first question might be, “Why a sequel?” Yes, Arthur Less is an adorable character, one who will attract readers to the second book. And yes, Andrew Sean Greer has created a world worthy of a second exploration. But the best answer perhaps is that the relationship between Arthur Less, the protagonist in both novels, and his lover, Freddy Pelu, is mostly unexplored in the first book and painted lovingly in the follow-up novel. Although the sequel follows an entertaining structure similar to Less, wherein the novelist Arthur Less goes on a road trip of sorts, complete with situational comedy, Less is Lost delights with a love story that explores simultaneously loving and admiring someone. This is a fantastically written book, a deceptively simple read with so much depth and complexity and insight woven throughout, illustrating that Greer is an American treasure.
Greer immediately plunges us into Arthur Less’s world. Readers familiar with the first book will feel like they have just put on a comfortable coat that had been stored all summer and feels like the perfect pleasure against the crisp winds of fall. Unfamiliar readers will be pulled in by the deft way Greer develops the narrative, and they won’t feel they are missing out for having not read the first book.
The narrator Freddy, who introduces himself immediately (“Readers, may I present: Me, Freddy Pelu”), often uses meta fictional addresses to the reader, as in “Reader, this is not so,” and “But reader, there are no coincidences on this journey.” These addresses occur more frequently at the start and in the end of the novel, functioning as a frame—a narrative device Freddy also comments on several times. Once, he obliquely mentions a teacher’s conference where he has left “a breakout session on narrative structure ” to “break out of my own narrative structure,” while the novel itself breaks out of its own narrative structure. Other times, Freddy’s narration seems like Greer joking with us through more meta fictional references to “novelists, with their love of structure and language and symmetry in novels,” which is apropos considering the structured and symmetrical titles for the book’s four parts are Sunset, Southwest, Southeast, and Sunrise. When Less becomes a beast of sorts after he starts writing a novel, Freddy comments that “I assumed, as many do, that the act itself would take place in some crucible of the soul and be no more of a nuisance than living near a typing school. Readers, this is not so.” In these brief scenes about working as a writer, it’s easy to forget Freddy isn’t the actual author but the creation of the author because Freddy is so well constructed as a literary device—and the substantial advice Greer relays through Freddy should be studied by any new writer.
Whereas the first book left Freddy on the periphery, Less is Lost builds his persona as one so deeply in love with Less that he’s dedicated time to write a book about him. Readers can intuit that having been together for over ten years, Freddy has heard all of the stories he’s relaying to us. He’s observed the mannerisms of his lover and is thus able to provide a veritable narrative, with meta fictional commentary from time to time, in addition to inspecting Less as a character.
At work in the novel is the playful approach with meta fiction and something not unlike mirroring. A gay author (Greer) writes about a gay writer (Freddy Pelu) who is writing about a gay writer (Arthur Less) who had been in a long relationship with a famous older gay poet (Robert Brownburn) from whom he learned about writing and being a working writer and who is now on a road trip at the behest of an elderly but very famous writer (H. H. H. Mandern). Freddy is now the younger man in a relationship with Less who has just turned 50 and is struggling with loss of loved ones and an uncertain career, including being mistaken for another Arthur Less who is a fiction author in a different genre. Throughout the novel, which mostly follows Less as he takes a road trip from San Francisco to Delaware in a van acquired by Mandern, Freddy is working on a project that is, no surprise, the book we are reading. Along the journey, Freddy shares writing advice learned from Less who learned from Brownburn…and so on. These reflections or echoes not only serve the plot, but they also develop the characters and their relationships to each other, like a sort of transference created in the reader wherein the attributes of one situation reverberate in another situation.
The meta fictional commentary, particularly about writing craft, are worthy of deeper study. The commentaries on craft are gold for any young writer, even if the lessons come harshly, such as when Less is grieving and Brownburn says of the experience, “You have to write it down. You have to use it later. And that means you have to pay attention. I’m sorry this disaster has come for you. I love you. But pay attention. It won’t help now, I don’t know what will help now, but I promise it will help later. That’s all you need to do. Pay attention.”
While Less rejects the advice in the heat of the moment, Freddy has obviously paid attention at some later time when Less must have relayed the situation to him. Through descriptions of Less and his actions, Freddy’s narration provides multiple levels of plot and themes, particularly showing two people in love, honoring each other’s independence, finding intimacies, and discovering how to deeply care while both partners experience the ups and downs of human experience. Freddy’s narration offers a sophisticated examination of love mirrored (as he to Less, so as Less to Brownburn) and love complicated by loyalty and admiration for career, life experiences, and worldliness. As a fictional device, Freddy’s writing of the book about his lover shows how closely he’s paid attention, affectionately but also acceptingly, of his partner in all his flaws and quirks. When Less rants that no one “wants a middle-aged gay white novelist nobody’s ever heard of,” Freddy replies, “I do.” The plot doesn’t linger on these endearing moments, and many readers will see the relationship only as a backdrop rather than as a major force in the novel, but astute readers may find themselves choking up at the romance and appreciating what Greer has crafted, particularly because the characters defy the stereotypes of a gay relationship, especially in fiction.
In the first book, the narrative tone is sharply funny with poignant crumbs that slowly lead to the revelation of Freddy’s identity. By the end, we’re only beginning to see the relationship between Freddy and Less through hints of how Freddy could know enough about Less to narrate the story. Freddy clearly wasn’t with Arthur Less throughout most of the action, so how did he know any of the details? The sequel leaves no doubt, because it is clear that Less, like any partner in a long-term relationship, has told his stories repeatedly while Freddy listened. Sometimes, Freddy also tells readers (either directly or indirectly) what Less was experiencing in the moment. For example, when a man approaches Less, Freddy cannot give us more than a general description that the man is young, yet “how young, Less cannot tell you,” meaning Freddy cannot tell us either, but he adds that Less’s “guess is somewhere between conception and thirty.”
What Greer has accomplished here cannot be understated. Not only does his narrator Freddy provide the narrative for Less (our main story), he also provides a thinly veiled narrative of the narrative itself (how does Freddy know all this?) while slowly revealing the deep intimacy between the two, albeit fictional, writers.
The book ends happily because, as Greer stated in an interview after the publication of Less, “It was important for me for Arthur as a queer character to be given a happy ending, because I’d long wanted to read that book and I couldn't find it. When I look around, I see lots of healthy, loving gay relationships and lots of joy.”
Greer, in Arthur Less and in Freddy Pelu, has given readers just that—lots of joy.
Kelly A. Harrison, MFA, teaches technical communication at Stanford University and works as a writer and consultant in San José, CA. She edited West Winds Centennial, an anthology of works by the California Writers Club, for which she won the Ina Coolbrith award. Her works have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, including Reed Magazine, Hidden Compass, and Celebrate Creativity, and she writes for Technical Communication. She is the Associate Editor for West Trade Review.
by Kelly A. Harrison
September 22, 2022
©2022 West Trade Review
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Playful Narrative and Endearing Love in Andrew Sean Greer's
Less is Lost
FICTION REVIEW
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Image by Iulia Mihailov from Unsplash
Kelly A. Harrison, MFA, teaches technical communication at Stanford University and works as a writer and consultant in San José, CA. She edited West Winds Centennial, an anthology of works by the California Writers Club, for which she won the Ina Coolbrith award. Her works have appeared in literary journals and anthologies, including Reed Magazine, Hidden Compass, and Celebrate Creativity, and she writes for Technical Communication. She is the Associate Editor for West Trade Review.
©2022 West Trade Review
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