First published 2018
Arthur Less stares at a wedding invitation on his desk. His boyfriend of nine years is marrying someone else. Less cannot attend without embarrassment. He cannot decline without admitting defeat. The failed novelist sees his escape route in a pile of literary invitations scattered across his workspace. He accepts every single one. Less embarks on a global journey that takes him from Paris to Berlin to Morocco to India. He nearly dies in a sandstorm. He books himself into a Christian retreat by mistake. He finds himself stranded on a desert island in the Arabian Sea. Through each misadventure, Less approaches his fiftieth birthday. The man he least wants to encounter appears at the worst possible moment. His travels become a reckoning with his first love and his last love. Less discovers that running away from problems leads him straight back to himself.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, adult-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: fish-out-of-water, second-chance
Setting: Arabia, Berlin, India, Morocco, Paris
Period: 21st-century
263 pages · Paperback · Little, Brown Paperbacks