Andrew Sean Greer on LESS IS LOST

“I already had a kind of Don Quixote set up in mind. And so I was like, Wouldn't it be funny if Arthur was the sort of Sancho Panza in this? I'll just barely touch on it and see where it goes. And I thought he needs someone totally full of himself to shake him up…” Readers fell in love with Arthur Less — and Andrew Sean Greer took home a Pulitzer Prize for Less, the novel that introduced us to Arthur. Andrew joins us on the show to talk about his new novel, the not-really-a-sequel, Less Is Lost, turning tragedy into comedy, rewrites, what scares him as a writer, his literary influences, the writing advice that he still relies on and much more with Poured Over’s host, Miwa Messer. And we finish this episode with TBR Topoff book recommendations from Marc and Becky.

 

Featured Books (Episode):

Less (winner of the Pulitzer Prize) by Andrew Sean Greer
The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer 
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells by Andrew Sean Greer
Story of a Marriage by Andrew Sean Greer

Chéri by Colette

Don Quixote by Cervantes
A Boy's Own Life by Edmund White

Travels with My Aunt by Graham Greene
Moby Dick by Herman Melville

 

Featured Books (TBR Topoff):

A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

Bucky F*cking Dent by David Duchovny

 

Poured Over is produced and hosted by Miwa Messer and mixed by Harry Liang. Follow us here for new episodes Tuesdays and Thursdays (with occasional Saturdays).

 

A full transcript of this episode is available here.