Less Is Lost (Arthur Less #2)

by Andrew Sean Greer

“Finley, I think it’s not for Canadians! They win too many of these!”

I am ashamed to say that Arthur Less is not comfortable with Southern hail-fellow-well-met friendliness. Perhaps because he grew up on the Eastern Seaboard, where affection was kept in the cupboard with the hurricane lamps, or perhaps it was merely because his parents, including a loving mother who, like a famous actor omitting from a script lines she cannot pronounce, simply could not say “I love you.” Less used to tease her about this; he knew she loved him, knew this beyond any doubt, but he would end each phone call with “I love you, Mom,” which was like trying to get a Buckingham Palace guard to smile because she was temperamentally incapable of answering anything but “Goodbye, son.”

What plant could flower under the cold sun of Reagan?

Arthur Less breaks down in racking sobs that are equal parts relived sorrow and musical-theater joy, and show me the homosexual who could sift out which is which.

*chef's kiss*

He thought he was the only one for whom ordering a deli sandwich and wrestling an alligator held equal levels of terror. It is one of the reasons I always think of him as the bravest man I know—for who can guess what feats of valor he has overcome simply to arrive at your door? To get here, for instance, he has lost his first love, caused the early landing of an airplane, flooded an architectural treasure, and crossed the Mississippi with a pug.

“Well, hello fucking Dolly!” Less cannot tell if she is referencing the 1964 Jerry Herman musical or the 1969 Gene Kelly film version or simply speaking English.

Less repeats the phrase he has memorized for just this occasion: “I have understood the words you have said.”

As for what Less came all this way to say, there is really no reason to say it out loud.

Because to love someone ridiculous is to understand something deep and true about the world. That up close it makes no sense.