Member Review

I confess I selected this book from Netgalley without hesitation because of David Sedaris’ recommendation. I would follow that man anywhere. This is a second volume about a gay author Arthur Less, and I probably should have read the Pulitzer Prize-winning first story, Less, first. But I didn’t, and although it took me a while to catch up and catch on, I did end up appreciating the story. At first it seemed to be a book for insiders, filled with jokes and observations about the publishing world and gay culture, but gradually the humanity of Arthur Less began to drive the story — his need for love, his indecisiveness and his failings as well as his kindness and basic goodness.
And the richness of Greer’s writing made every page a delight. For example:
“ The moon is not out yet, but there are stars, and the world that these Delawareans probably take as ordinary or even ugly—the mounds of kelp and sea litter, the hard stonelike sand, the rocks spattered with the candle wax of bird droppings, the smell of rot and life, the waves breaking into applause, and everywhere, everywhere, unstoppable life hidden or crawling or swimming—is, to anybody else (to me), extraordinary, beautiful, exotic, strange. Somewhere in the water, the fish lie listening, arranged like magic daggers in the dark.”
The story has a few amusing twists to add to the enjoyment, but to me the universal search for love is what drove me to journey along with Arthur Less.