Less Is Lost (Arthur Less #2)

by Andrew Sean Greer

one could not withdraw the days of one’s youth in retirement and throw them on the fire to warm old bones.

Less realizes he has made the sound himself. For the dead live only in us.

Realizing we are no longer in love is not the heartbreaking sensation we imagine when we are in love—because it is no sensation at all. It is a realization made by a bystander.

Fuck that.’” Less sees his sister transform into his old straight-talking friend as she reads from her phone. “‘Fuck that. You don’t get that, Rebecca. This isn’t redecorating, this is house-on-fire shit. This is grabbing what to save. This is leaving shit behind. This is once-in-a-lifetime suffering and pain and heartache and yet it may be your only chance to decide what you really want. None of this I don’t want to change bullshit. Hell no—you’ve changed. That’s happened. Now what? Everything changes and this one fucking time, you’re in charge of it, my God, so choose! Make the wrong choice, that’s fine! That’s fine! But choose.’”

Less comes to understand that life for some goes smoothly, as free from incident as it is perhaps from poetry; a fainter kind of happiness than Less has ever perceived.

of existence has not quite pierced his soul: That in real life, there are no protagonists. Or, rather, the reverse: It’s nothing but protagonists. It’s protagonists all the way down.