Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2017)
49-year-old Arthur Less is a writer and man-about-town, come from San Francisco to New York, where he's spent most of his life on the literary scene. Formerly the lover of the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Robert Brownburn, his days of unalloyed youth and beauty are behind him. Now it's his turn to be in a doomed relationship with a younger man, Freddy Pelu, the 25-year-old son of his frenemy Carlos. Now 34 and an English teacher, Freddy declares that his boyfriend Tom wants to go monogamous and get married. Feeling as though he'll be humiliated if he goes to the wedding, Arthur gets out of it by accepting any and all invitations to literary events from around the world that come his way. And so begins his little odyssey of heartbreak and misadventure... I read this for a book club and was a little startled to see that it won the Pulitzer. To be honest upfront, if there's one thing that puts a massive barrier between me and a novel, it's the label "comedy". ...