| This Pulitzer
Prize-winning novel is vividly brought to life in the new
audiobook version. The narrator faced an enormous challenge
to authentically portray various accents, including German,
Italian, Spanish, Indian, and American, plus young, old, black,
white, male, and female voices. Happily, Robert Petkoff rises
to the challenge with exceptional voiceover work that animates
the sad tale of Arthur Less, a lonely middle-aged, midlist
novelist attempting to avoid his former gay lover’s
wedding by traveling around the world to mediocre literary
events.
Andrew Sean Greer’s best-selling novel (which also was
named A New York Times Notable Book of 2017, A Washington
Post Top Ten Book of 2017, and A San Francisco Chronicle
Top Ten Book of 2017) explores one man’s failed attempts
“at being himself,” and he needs foreign travel
from one disappointing lecture, award ceremony, or teaching
assignment to another to learn this lesson. Old friends and
lovers mingle with new friends and lovers – sprinkled
with some rivals from the past – to force Less into
facing his shortcomings.
There’s poetry in the words of this intense character
study. Less is to be enjoyed for its lyricism, insight, and
characterizations, rather than plotting, action, or suspense.
The story moves slowly, paused by lots of dialogue and romantic
flashbacks, as Less teeters on the brink of his fiftieth birthday,
alone and miserable with a lukewarm writing career. The two
big loves of his life, a much older poet (out of Less’s
league in terms of writing and now confined to an assisted
living facility) and a much younger man (out of Less’s
league in terms of physical attractiveness and now marrying
another man) prompt the frequent flashbacks to their meetings,
conversations, and intimate relations. Less’s homosexuality
plays a part in his problems, but his mindset is the main
source of his unhappiness.
Although this audiobook deprives readers of seeing the lovely
metaphoric language as they would in a print edition, they
get the bonus of hearing Petkoff’s vocal talents as
Less travels the globe in search of himself.
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