Andrew Sean Greer

Greer was born in Washington, D.C., and studied at Brown University before publishing several literary novels (The Confessions of Max Tivoli among them) that earned respectful reviews but modest sales, a track record he mined directly for his breakthrough book.

Less (2017) follows Arthur Less, a minor novelist about to turn fifty, who accepts a string of embarrassing, second-tier literary invitations around the world rather than attend his ex-boyfriend's wedding, the trip's comic humiliations gradually revealing genuine tenderness underneath; it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2018, a surprise for a book many reviewers had filed simply as comic entertainment.

He followed it with a sequel, Less Is Lost, extending Arthur Less's misadventures across America, and continues writing comic, emotionally generous literary fiction from San Francisco.