Less Is Lost (Arthur Less #2)

by Andrew Sean Greer

“Do you know the problem with American writers?” “Commas.” A finger-wag from the Czech. “Your problem is you are all New Yorkers.” Less has no idea anymore what they are talking about. His mind is making the pointless scribbles of a pen that has run out of ink. But the man goes on: “New York, Boston, San Francisco. You don’t bother with the rest of the country. Have you seen the Mojave Desert? The Natchez Trace? The Appalachian Trail? No, you only know this city by the sea. No wonder you keep rewriting Fitzgerald!”

Art, what’s your philosophy?” A few axioms come to mind—Don’t buy tomatoes in winter; men over forty should not dye their hair; expensive underwear is worth it—but no philosophies. Less demurs: “Um, I don’t think I have one.”