A short life of the author
Andrew Sean Greer (b. 1970) was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in the suburbs of Maryland. He studied at Brown University and the University of Montana. He lives in San Francisco.
Life and Career
Greer’s early novels — The Path of Minor Planets (2001) and The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004) — demonstrated his lyrical gifts and his interest in the passage of time. Max Tivoli — about a man born old who ages backwards — is a beautiful, melancholy novel that was well-received but did not find a wide readership.
Less (2017) — about Arthur Less, a minor novelist approaching fifty who accepts every invitation he can find in order to avoid attending his ex-lover’s wedding — won the Pulitzer Prize in a genuine surprise. The novel is a comic picaresque that is also, underneath its humour, a serious exploration of what it means to be ordinary, to age, and to love.
Less Is Lost (2022) — a sequel in which Arthur Less drives across America — extends the comedy.
Major Works and Themes
Greer writes about time, love, aging, and the fear of insignificance. His fiction is comic but never trivial — the humour serves the emotional core rather than deflecting from it.
Key Works
- The Confessions of Max Tivoli (2004)
- Less (2017) — Pulitzer Prize
Collecting Greer
Less first edition (Lee Boudreaux Books/Little, Brown, 2017) brings $30–$60 signed. Pre-Pulitzer copies are more valuable.