{"id":8718029,"date":"2023-01-17T06:45:25","date_gmt":"2023-01-17T14:45:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/?p=8718029&preview=true&preview_id=8718029"},"modified":"2023-01-17T06:45:53","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T14:45:53","slug":"pulitzer-winning-author-does-something-he-never-expected-as-an-encore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eastbaytimes.com\/2023\/01\/17\/pulitzer-winning-author-does-something-he-never-expected-as-an-encore\/","title":{"rendered":"Pulitzer-winning author does something he never expected as an encore"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the best things about writing \u201cLess,\u201d says author Andrew Sean Greer, was that he felt completely ready to move on afterward.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s hard to make a book and let it go, because you feel like it\u2019s unfinished. Not this one,\u201d the San Francisco-based author says of his 2017 novel. \u201cIt was a book that I loved writing that then, the reviewers loved. And I was like, \u2018Done.\u2019 And I was moving on to the next book.\u201d<\/p>\n

But a funny thing happened on his way to his next project.<\/p>\n

\u201cNine months later, I win a Pulitzer Prize for (\u2018Less\u2019),\u201d Greer says. \u201cI had not thought about the book. It was long gone.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winning the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was, of course, a game changer for Greer, whose previous novels were 2001\u2019s \u201cThe Path of Minor Planets: A Novel,\u201d 2004\u2019s \u201cThe Confessions of Max Tivoli,\u201d 2008\u2019s \u201cThe Story of a Marriage\u201d and 2013\u2019s \u201cThe Impossible Lives of Greta Wells.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, what did Greer do for a follow-up? Something he never expected: Giving the reading world more of \u201cLess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not going to write a sequel,\u201d Greer says. \u201cThat was not in my mind, because \u2018Less\u2019 very definitely has an ending. It\u2019s a complete book — I worked hard for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I kept sort of fiddling, just for fun, with the things I cut out of \u2018Less\u2019 or other fun ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n

The result is the just-published \u201cLess Is Lost,\u201d which finds the author expanding upon the storyline of protagonist Arthur Less.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy agent told me not to write a sequel to a Pulitzer Prize-winning novel,\u201d Greer says. \u201cBut if there is anything you get to do after you win a prize like that, it\u2019s sort of write whatever you want and try to pretend no one is paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greer can pretend all he wants, but the fact is that \u201cLess Is Lost\u201d has created sizable buzz in the book world and earned some very favorable reviews.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a huge relief,\u201d Greer says of the strong reviews. \u201cYou should have seen me the week before this published. I was just a nervous wreck, because I thought, \u2018No one needs a sequel.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Then again, not every character is as fun to read about as Arthur Less, a San Francisco-based writer who many readers assume is based upon Greer himself. Indeed, they share many traits, but there are also important differences.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have a little better sense of humor than (Less) does,\u201d Greer says.<\/p>\n

The author certainly has \u201cwait a sec, which one is which?\u201d experience. He grew up in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., with an identical twin brother.<\/p>\n

\""Less
“Less is Lost” is the follow-up to Andrew Sean Greer’s prizewinning novel, “Less.” <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cOur loved ones will say that we sound the same — the way we talk,\u201d he says of being a twin. \u201cOur ideas are very similar. We are both very geeky. He\u2019s married to a woman. And I have a boyfriend. And that is the main difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

After earning a bachelor\u2019s degree from Brown University, followed by an MFA from the\u00a0 University of Montana, Greer moved to Seattle, where he scored a cool gig writing about video games for Nintendo.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a dream job,\u201d he says. \u201cThey would pay me to play the games.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the mid-\u201890s, Greer relocated to San Francisco, where he wrote for Esquire, The New Yorker and other publications — and eventually released his debut novel, \u201cThe Path of Minor Planets,\u201d in 2001.<\/p>\n

More novels followed, but it was \u201cLess\u201d that made him famous. Oddly enough, the novel that ended up winning the Pulitzer Prize for fiction was not the one Greer initially set out to write.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was (originally) a serious novel about a middle-aged gay man in San Francisco,\u201d he remembers. \u201cIt was so mopey and pitiful — I could not stand to be near it. I just threw it all away — almost all of it — and started over.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was swimming in the bay one day, and I just thought, \u2018What am I going to do?\u2019 And I thought, \u2018I could try making fun of him. I mean, it\u2019s a disaster anyway — why not try that?\u2019 I had never tried that before. And it was such great fun.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greer wrote much of the sequel, \u201cLess Is Lost,\u201d in Milan, where he has a second home with his Italian boyfriend. He moved there about three years ago \u2013 and yes, the pandemic lockdown made Italian life significantly less glamorous or sweepingly cinematic as one might have hoped.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was good for getting my writing done,” he says, “because I didn\u2019t go to the cinema or opera. We did get a lot of gelato and pizza.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now that \u201cLess Is Lost\u201d is earning raves, might Arthur Less turn out to be Greer\u2019s version of James Bond?<\/p>\n

\u201cThat would be great fun,\u201d he says. \u201cI am actually not writing another one at the moment, to my agent\u2019s great relief. But I bet I\u2019ll write another one in the future.”<\/del><\/p>\n

\n

The books: <\/strong>Frantic to avoid both his upcoming 50th birthday and his ex\u2019s impending nuptials, Arthur Less rushes off \u2013 often disastrously \u2013 to literary gigs halfway round the world in the original novel. The delightful sequel, \u201cLess Is Lost\u201d (Little, Brown and Company, $29), finds our hapless protagonist more settled but still grappling with various woes by \u2013 yes, of course, he’s hitting the road again, this time bouncing across the U.S. in a rusty camper dubbed Rosina.<\/p>\n

\n

What’s on Andrew Sean Greer\u2019s bookshelves:<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cBooth,\u201d Karen Joy Fowler:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cShe\u2019s a fantastic Santa Cruz writer, known for \u2018The Jane Austen Book Club.\u2019 Every book of hers is different and brilliant. This one is about John Wilkes Booth and the Booth family.\u201d