In the world of books, this is front-page news, and a great deal of money is jangling behind the scenes. Mandern's new novel in it, he revives his wildly popular Holmesian robot, Peabody. Mandern onstage to celebrate the launch of H. For it is now ten minutes to seven.Īrthur Less has been here for three days he is in New York to interview famous science fiction author H. Little good this does him at the moment, sitting on the round sofa, from whose conical center emerges an oiled palm. This is, for Arthur Less, a rare rave review. In her defense, she has read only one novel of his, in an electronic form that lacked a photo, and found the female narrator so compelling, so persuasive, that she was certain only a woman could have written it she assumed the name to be one of those American gender curiosities (she is Japanese). The problemwhich will not be solved in this lobbyis that the escort believes Arthur Less to be a woman. If he paid attention, perhaps he would have heard the woman's eager question, which explains why, though she asks everyone else in the lobby, she never asks it of him:

The young woman goes up to the lobby clerk, then to the elevator, startling a group of ladies overdressed for the theater. Less does not notice her as she makes her rounds. She dips her face into a cluster of chairs, asking a particular question, and then, dissatisfied with the answer, darts away to find another. The poor man does not know it, but the time is already quarter to seven.Īs he waits, around and around the room circles a young woman in a brown wool dress, a species of tweed hummingbird, pollinating first this group of tourists and then that one. It is mere coincidence that the clock stopped at half past six, almost exactly the hour when he is to be taken to tonight's event. Arthur Less is not aware of this he still believes, at his ripe age, that escorts for literary events arrive on time and bellboys reliably wind the lobby clocks. Listen: you might hear anxiety ticking, ticking, ticking away as he stares at that clock, which unfortunately is not ticking itself. The washed-out blond hair too long on the top, too short on the sidesportrait of his grandfather. The long patrician nose perennially burned by the sun (even in cloudy New York October). So has Arthur Less, once pink and gold with youth, faded like the sofa he sits on, tapping one finger on his knee and staring at the grandfather clock.

His slim shadow is, in fact, still that of his younger self, but at nearly fifty he is like those bronze statues in public parks that, despite one lucky knee rubbed raw by schoolchildren, discolor beautifully until they match the trees. Look at him: seated primly on the hotel lobby's plush round sofa, blue suit and white shirt, legs knee-crossed so that one polished loafer hangs free of its heel.

From where I sit, the story of Arthur Less is not so bad.

Less is lost andrew sean greer