Andrew Sean Greer’s 2018 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel is Less.
The novel follows Arthur Less, a novelist approaching his fiftieth birthday who travels around the world while trying to avoid attending the wedding of his former partner. Its comic plot moves through several countries and combines romantic uncertainty with reflections on aging, literary ambition, and failure.
Less won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018. Greer’s novel was recognized for its humorous and inventive treatment of a writer’s self-image and emotional evasions. The title refers to the protagonist’s surname as well as the idea of diminishing expectations and simplifying life.
Readers sometimes mix it up with Michael Cunningham’s The Hours, another Pulitzer-winning novel about writers and literary lives. Less is not a memoir, despite its focus on a novelist, and Arthur Less is a fictional character.