Get Lost and Find Adventure with Andrew Sean Greer

Annmarie Kelly:

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Does anyone here ever feel like a failure? Maybe not a failure exactly, but a disappointment. Like what happened to all those big dreams you had for yourself? Maybe you won track races when you were younger and dreamed of running marathons, or maybe you painted, or dreamed of touring with a theater company, or going to Space Camp, or NASCAR, or Carnival. Most of us didn't grow up dreaming small. We weren't going to deliver the mail, we were going to drive a race car, or a rocket to the moon. I dreamed of becoming a ballet dancer and then I got boobs and a butt and realized that the chorus line of Swan Lake was unlikely to be a home for me. Now I mostly just bop around my kitchen to eighties and nineties tunes when I'm sauteing chicken. I used to dream of a job in publishing. I envisioned myself sharing a sixth floor walkup with five other low paid interns. We'd drink martinis at happy hour and read thousands of weekly pages in search of the next great novel. But I don't actually like martinis, and there's no room for my three kids in that imaginary tiny apartment.

So now, like most folks, I fall in love with books after they're published instead of before. The reality is that most of us settled. We didn't marry a movie star or model full time or sing on Broadway. We never went on that archeological dig. And it might be tempting to look at the forgotten shells of our dreams and see defeat. In many ways, reality is not as shiny, but it's also surprisingly satisfying and sometimes even beautiful. I may not have had the bone structure to be at ballerina, but I'll tell you what, these hips of mine, they're great for holding babies. I never worked in publishing, but now I interact with publishing houses all the time, booking guests for this show. Our dreams grow and change with us.

And in plenty of ways, we become our own slightly adjusted dreams come true. Andrew Sean Greer, our guest today, has created one of my favorite dreamers in literature. His fictional character, Arthur Less is a relatively unknown writer, living a sometimes disappointing life. Very little of what Arthur Less dreams ever goes quite according to plan. But he is absolutely delightful, and somewhere amid the chaotic shambles of his dashed hopes, Arthur always manages to piece together a new longing.

And I wanted to meet the writer who invented him. So Andrew Sean Greer is the author of seven works of fiction, including The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. He has a new book out now. Less is Lost. Greer has taught at a number of universities, including the Iowa Writer's Workshop and has been a Today Show pick, a New York Public Library, Coleman Center Fellow, and a judge for the National Award. Andrew Sean Greer is also a recipient of an NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. He lives in San Francisco and Milan. Andrew Sean Greer, welcome to Wild, Precious Life.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Thank you so much for having me.

Annmarie Kelly:

We are delighted to have you here today to chat about Less is Lost, the sequel to your Pulitzer prize winning book, Less. And certainly for folks listening, if you haven't yet had the fantastic opportunity to read Less the first book, you should definitely pick it up. But I recently heard writer and book seller Anne Patchett say that she feels Less is lost also stands completely on its own. And I was doubtful when I went into it, but she's actually right. You don't need to have read the first to read the second. I think you can be captivated by this misbegotten hero who's sort of part Don Quixote, part Odysseus, maybe part Amelia Badelia, and just all wonderful. But it's possible a few of our listeners will not yet have had the honor of discovering your writing. So Andrew Sean Greer, will you please give us the honor of just telling us a little bit of your story?

Andrew Sean Greer:

I mean, my story as I see it is that I always wanted to be a writer, since I could read, it's sort of like fan fiction I would start to write when I was 10, I wrote a version of Watership Down with squirrels that was five pages long and that was my first novel. Isn't that adorable? And so I just kept wanting to be a writer. I was raised, I'm an identical twin, I grew up in suburban Maryland. My parents are both chemists, scientists, they both grew up in the south and I just kept working and working. And I didn't publish until I was 30, which is normal, and I just did odd jobs up until then.

And I got some attention for my third book called The Confessions of Max Tivoli. That really changed my life in a lot of ways. But a lot of people will assume Less is my first book. It was my sixth book, but I get it. I understand. I see what you're talking about. I didn't quite show up for a lot of people until I won a Pulitzer Prize. I understand that, that's probably true about a lot of writers I know. I heard of them because they won a Nobel Prize. Most of us haven't heard of those writers.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, as someone who's creeping towards 50 myself and as a person who-

Andrew Sean Greer:

Congratulations.

Annmarie Kelly:

... has published... Thank you. As a person who's only published one middling book and dreams of writing more, I felt, I'm not a gay man from California, but I felt so incredibly seen by Arthur Less, like Arthur I wake up every day dreaming of possibilities and often end the day a little bit overcome by what I've not yet accomplished. And he was a fast friend. I worked a political campaign in 2016, 17 and 18, so I missed this book when it first came out. All the fanfare, all the everything. And then in 2018 and 2019, I got to go back and pick up everything. So I have a fond memory of coming to Arthur Less and him getting me through the pandemic and-

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh gosh.

Annmarie Kelly:

So what made you want to revisit this guy? Because I would not have thought him sequel worthy. And I hesitate to even call it a sequel, because I really do think it's a standalone. What made you want to come back and hang with Arthur less?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Well, I wasn't supposed to. My agent told me not to, because I told her I was still fiddling around with stories with Arthur Less. And she said, "You can't write a sequel to a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. So stop thinking about it." So I didn't. I tried writing another book and it was just terrible. And by then I think the pandemic was starting and I just thought, "You know what? Michael Shaban told me on winning the Pulitzer Prize that then you can write whatever you want. So I'm just going to write whatever I want." Because I wanted to be back in that world. I wanted to be back with someone who everything goes wrong for him, and he wakes up the next day and he thinks it's going to go great all over again. That kind of renewed hope and innocence that is always dashed, but is ever renewed, felt like the right place to be. So I really enjoyed being there again.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love his relentless, impossible optimism. I mean not too far into the book, we learn that he's fixing to be homeless. He's not been paying the rent on this domicile or shack that it didn't occur to him that he should be paying, because it was someone else's. And so he's about to be without a place to live and a hapless wanderer that he is, just like before he starts saying yes to improbable or impossible things, the kind of stuff you probably say no to, but this is going to pay the bills, and it's going to get him the rent money to fix everything. And I believe him.

One of my favorite things is that however impossible or improbable his scheme seems, I'm along for the ride. Now, what could possibly go wrong on that donkey, into that canyon? What could possibly go wrong in that, I can't even call it a nudist colony because it was only a section of... What could possibly go wrong with that tap you're not supposed to fiddle with beneath the stars, I love that.

Andrew Sean Greer:

And they're not nude, they're just... He's the only one naked.

Annmarie Kelly:

Clothing is optional. And so he thinks [inaudible 00:10:18].

Andrew Sean Greer:

Clothing optional. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

It's like everyone's worst nightmare. But he just rolls along with it and they speak German and almost so does he. I love that. Do you speak German, or did you have someone to help you with the phrases?

Andrew Sean Greer:

I took German for a few months and gave up because I just thought this is like learning Latin. There's too many declensions, I'm not interested anymore. My father speaks German and I knew enough German to know how it's constructed. And then I would sit there with Google Translate and try to get something that would sound like a pun in German, so get as close as possible. Although a German recently confronted me, because he uses the wrong word for flood.

Annmarie Kelly:

Flood.

Andrew Sean Greer:

He says pan flute. And they're like, "What are you talking about pan flute?" Noah and the pan flute. And they're like, "Oh, flood." And the German was like, "Those two words don't sound alike." I'm like, "It's inundation and tin flute." And he is like, "Oh yeah, those are similar." I was like, "I tried." But pan flute is funnier than tin flute because it's a pan flute. I just think-

Annmarie Kelly:

It is.

Andrew Sean Greer:

... some license.

Annmarie Kelly:

Absolutely some license. And as a reader we don't know either words, so we're just laughing at him yelling around. And there is something to do with trying to communicate across a divide. In the before times when I used to travel more, I remember, oh Cinque Terra in Italy arriving in one of those tiny towns, reservationless, I should have called you, with no reservation and meeting a woman who said that her uncle or someone's cousin down the hill had a room. And that's all a friend of a friend of a stranger. And it flooded in the middle of the night. We woke up to the sound of the same tap water in the middle of the night, and all of our belongings were floating. And I neither knew the gentleman's name from who we'd rented, nor the what the word an Italian was for flood, so my husband and I flipped a coin and I decided to go up the staircase that I'd never been up to and yell... What did I yell?

Aqua. Because I knew water, and piso which may or may not mean floor, and pronto which I think meant now, so I'm just like, "Aqua, piso, pronto." And a naked Italian man comes rushing down the stairs and it was enough. But the ways we communicate across distance and divides can often be quite hilarious. And they are in this book. I know what else I also like is that when Less does not know the language, so there's also, there's an Italian moment. He talks to Freddy's uncle and Freddy is the narrator of Less is Lost and is Less's partner. And we get this beautiful Italian conversation where Less says he understands Italian. And I wrote this down, the uncle says, quote, "The problem in the world is that we aren't kind to one another, we have one another. That's all we have. We must celebrate them. Remember that. I don't care who you love, but if you love someone, if you love someone, you have to love them every day. You have to choose them every day."

And so there I am in love with this Italian uncle, and there's Less telling Freddy, "Yeah, I don't know what he said. I don't know what the guy said. I can't remember. I couldn't understand it." So even when Less has the opportunity to hear something beautiful and actually truly connect, he doesn't.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Well, it's also, it's a trick of mine so that I get to write something really sentimental and then I can undercut it so the reader doesn't roll their eyes too much because they realize. But that's actually a speech that an elderly man gave to me when I was on a floating paddle wheeler on the Columbia River for an article for a travel magazine.

Annmarie Kelly:

So this man told you that, and you heard him?

Andrew Sean Greer:

That's what he told me.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's beautiful. I love stealing from real life and then putting it in the book. You should absolutely do that. That's wonderful. Were you simultaneously building your own flotilla out of logs? Was there an adventure?

Andrew Sean Greer:

No, I did do that. I did that also many years ago in Sweden. I had a friend, a friend and I we took a water based trip in Sweden and we did indeed stay on a lake, a single hotel room on a lake, and we had to build rafts out of giant logs and rope and go for five days down the river.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's excellent. So, in the book, for folks who haven't read it, definitely Arthur Less takes his partner Freddy on what he hopes will be a romantic outing, and as often happens with our heroic man, Arthur Less, he just ends up into losing all their food, or they wake up in a fish tank, or as he calls the Grand Canyon a geological strip tease. It doesn't go as planned. And that's for most of us, maybe we don't end up in quite his conundrums, but very little goes as planned anyway. And there's something fantastic about embracing the new possibilities I think that Arthur gives us that opportunity to do.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Well, I try to, I'm not really that good at this, but certainly as a big traveler, I was a travel writer for a while and so when people ask you for travel advice, what I always tell them is the point of travel is for something to go wrong. You think it's not, you think you've got this great itinerary but that's no fun. If something goes wrong and you overcome it, like you're abandoned on the side of the road in Morocco and you get picked up by a bedouin tribal people with camels and they take you to their tent and they finally get you to Fez, that's a good outcome. That's the thing you didn't expect and you overcame it and that's all you'll remember. That's going to be the whole memory of the trip.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love that. And that's totally true. I'm thinking back on, we all have the carousel of stories we tell at parties where our partner rolls our eyes, because we're launching into that same story, but more often than not it's the story about missing the ferry or going the wrong way, or entering what you thought was your class reunion and realizing not until 30 minutes later it's a wedding and you didn't recognize anyone, you're just thinking, "Well they should have had name tags. I'm surprised there's no name tags." And it's only when the bride and group enter that you realize you're at the wrong... But those are the stories you tell, those accidental adventures.

There's plenty of times when I'm just laughing out loud alone reading your most recent book. I've decided to incorporate the rhetorical question, "What fresh moose is this?" Into my everyday vernacular. I'm just trying to work it in. So if it becomes a phrase, just understand I'm trying to have, "What fresh moose is this?" Just be what we ask.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Thank you Annmarie, what fresh moose is this?

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, I'm crying just thinking of how funny, why are you funny? I mean I'm circling back to this, why are you funny? The chemists, were your mom and dad hilarious people, just funny chemists?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah, I'm not, actually not that funny. I don't think, in my group of friends, I don't think I'm known for being particularly funny and I'm certainly not in my other books known for being funny. But I think on the page I'm funnier because I have time to get it the way I wish I'd say it in person. I'm not a great wit, but I'm intermittently lighthearted. It comes and goes.

That spirit of the staircase where you have the right thing to say only after you're leaving the party, that's me. But that's good. I'm a novelist. I can have that and just pretend I said it then, that's most of it. I just write down when things occur to me that they're funny, I write them on a notebook. And I think a lot of writers do that, because the funny stuff is not constant in life, but you have to catch it and remember it. And so I do. But some of it comes on the page, like, "What fresh moose is this?" Just seemed funny to me cause I already had a moose and from Dorothy Parker, "What fresh hell is this?" And I was like, "Oh that's funny. The word moose is so funny."

Annmarie Kelly:

It 100% is. And just everywhere in this book I realized how I have read, the name's escaping me, but it's a story of a marriage but not quite. What's that book called of yours?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah, story of a Marriage. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's not funny. And I think I read it after Less and realized that okay, yeah, you can flex, you can do, it's not that there's nothing funny in there, but it's not a comedic novel... That you can do both. A lot of writers just choose to do one though. A lot of writers don't do much humor on the page, either because they're not funny or they don't realize they can revise an extra H or an extra moose into somebody's name. I was thinking about it that the laugh out loud in a good book doesn't happen. And every page I'm laughing at something you've done.

Andrew Sean Greer:

I'm glad.

Annmarie Kelly:

You're playful.

Andrew Sean Greer:

I agree it isn't common, but that's what it is, it's playful. And I think that's not so different from Story of the Marriage where I thought of it as using words and imagery to get the emotion I wanted on the page. It's not so different for me from using... Because for me, people talk about the books being funny that there's a moose or that he floods a commune, but what I think is funny is in the language itself, that's where I had a good time and that feels like the same pleasure as writing Story of the Marriage.

Annmarie Kelly:

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I should point out to folks, it's not just a laugh a minute this book, but you also ask big questions and you make beautiful observations, we get what do we want from the past anyway? Or what if the whole idea of America is wrong? These gorgeous, chewy questions that, because it's a comedic novel, I don't expect you to go in a diatribe and answer, but I'm thinking about them. I'm thinking about what if the whole idea of America is wrong as Less is coming out of the canyon in the West, and driving through Texas into Louisiana, across the country. I'm thinking about the idea of America and whether I have it wrong, whether we have it wrong. And it just kind of haunts the pages. It's there the whole time, but you've asked it and you're still entertaining us. So I love the dance you do with... This is a book I take very seriously.

Andrew Sean Greer:

I'm honored to hear you say that. And I think it was very smart what you just said. I'm going to steal this, that because it's a comic novel, I don't have to answer it. I just have to bring it up and leave it in the background, so that it's a sort of secret other novel underneath that's much more serious. And that was what was actually on my mind. That's what was worrying me while I wrote the book was about the country, and it's a little pretentious to say it's a book about America, and so luckily it's a fairly unpretentious novel and it's just sort of in the background. So thank you for that. That's helpful.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well, thank you for that, because you sent this gay man, this character I love, who I felt relatively safe for in San Francisco, but you sent him across Texas and into Louisiana and then Mississippi, and I was afraid for him and I was worried for him. But I knew that it was a comic novel, and so unlike HHH Meldern or other people, I did feel like you were going to take care with him, that however many hurricanes he encountered, he wasn't going to blow off to sea. But it did make me rethink some of the stories that I tell myself about this country where... I have only ever lived in America, I've traveled other places, but I think all of us have a version of the story where we are asking ourselves, "Is this really the best we can do? Are we really behaving the best we can behave?"

Certainly our political situation, is this really as good as it gets? And what do we do in the face of that disconnect? And I feel like where we're tempted to pivot toward hatred, it would be really easy for me to just list the people in groups I feel like I hate right now in America. There's a lot of them, but I feel like Less Is Lost gives us this roadmap where I don't think Arthur Less is capable of hatred in the way that maybe I am. And this willingness to, whether it's to stumble haplessly into situations where they could be dangerous or to just pivot toward this love, I guess he says something about, or Freddie tells us about, Less that because he's walked into so many rooms feeling differentness, feeling that I don't belong here, that there is this strange ability that Arthur Less has to be accepting of difference everywhere he finds it because he has been on the receiving end of that so much.

I don't know that I have a question there except for so much that I felt like I was seeing my relationship with my in-laws, who live in Texas a little bit different, thinking about how Less encounters folks in the South.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Well, it was really helpful for me to write about him. And there's a good example of how it is not autobiographical, because I get really worked up and I have a pile of postcards I'm writing to voters in Georgia that I have to finish by the end of the day and that kind of thing.

Annmarie Kelly:

Go Stacy Abrams.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah, go Stacy Abrams, go out and vote everybody. Just-

Annmarie Kelly:

Please.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Scan the QR code on the postcard you get from me. You'll know how to do it. I think I'm also at the age where I realize no matter what my feelings are, I'm not very persuasive in an angry mode. I'm definitely not, even with friends. I have to just stop it. It doesn't work and it doesn't help anybody. It doesn't make me feel better. And for instance, I myself went into a dive bar in a rural place in Alabama, I guess you'd call it a redneck barm and just like Arthur Less does, but I went in not thinking I'm going to talk politics with these people or persuade them, I thought the best thing I could do is to be... And they all knew I was gay, is to go in, be a very neutral, pleasant presence, buy a round of Bud Lights and leave before 8:30. And they'll be like, "Well now, wasn't that a nice guy who came in?" And that might affect more change than if I had a very logical argument for them. I don't think that would be persuasive, but just being there would be persuasive, in some way.

Annmarie Kelly:

When I worked on the congressional campaign, I went into it, I was a writer after 2016 I think many of us who are writerly people felt like, what's the point of telling stories? Why can't we do something? So I worked on this campaign as a writer, and I thought what I was going to do was persuade people with policy, if I could just write the logical, if I could just get into their minds with the logic of the policy I could change minds. And that turns out to be hogwash. That's actually not how people change their minds. People change their minds exactly like you said, "Well, I mean I had a beer with a gay man in Alabama and he seemed okay." That is how people change their minds. They tell the story of an interaction. It is.

Andrew Sean Greer:

I think both are helpful, to have the policy, I just think I'm not good at the first one and I'm better... In the way that I used to be really political out on the streets with the signs, and I still am. And we worked on that for years for gay rights, and I think what changed the most certainly for gay men in America was Will and Grace.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh my goodness.

Andrew Sean Greer:

I think that's what changed everything, because people were like, "I just love that guy Will and Jack is a hoot. They should be able to get married." I just think it was, that's oversimplifying it. But I think it was that simple that they were like, "Oh yeah, that's fine. They're great." I think it was Will and Grace and which is so embarrassing after all that hard work, but those writers did hard work too. They made it genuinely funny.

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, my kids have grown up in a very different world. I've got three kids who've seen every episode of Modern Families. So they've grown up with Mitch and Cam and Lilly, so they just sort of take it for granted that families look all different shapes and sizes and it wouldn't even occur to them that families aren't like that. But when I was growing up, and perhaps you and I might be of a similar age, that when we were growing up what we saw on TV was a little different.

People were just showing divorced families on TV, and we were shocked to discover that you could do that or that what you... Representation does matter.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

It really does. Throughout the book there are these big questions, most of which are just asked and Less doesn't try to answer them, but being asked his philosophy of life he pivots to little tidbits and sayings. Like, I've got one where overalls are always a mistake but that's not a philosophy of life. That's something I stand by for my body shape. But I wondered if when you were asking any of these questions do you have a philosophy of life, would you say? And she says, the gal in the book says, "Everyone has one. You just have to discover it." So have you discovered it yet?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh, you know what, no one's ever asked me that. I'm sure it is something like the Mary Oliver quote that is the basis of the show. I'm sure it is, because I find myself when given choices of... I was just given one, it was like, are you willing to fly to India for a literary retreat that's going to be a super long voyage and you'll only be there for three days and it's Calcutta and it's not very glamorous? And I'm like, "Yeah, of course I'll do that, because I'm curious." And I've been to Calcutta before and it's not my favorite city on the earth, but it's sure interesting and it's a challenge for me and I'm up for it again.

So I think even though I'm a very cowardly person, I end up agreeing to all kinds of unlikely adventures because I'm just sure it's a better way to go, even though it often goes wrong. I can't be convinced otherwise. And that way I'm a little like Arthur Less and that I have a renewed innocence all the time.

Annmarie Kelly:

I understand that. I would consider myself Lessy in those ways too. I think I would be quite happy to do the same things in the same place with, this is hearkening back to the other book, but my exercise bands and I would just follow my same routines. But because I have this philosophy floating around that I don't put voice to, but that I need to say yes instead of no. I am a no person. I'm just going to stay here and read my book. I'm going to be Ann Tyler's accidental tourist in my chair, right? That's my default mode. But we just get this one chance we just get these handful of days. And I believe that an adventures are worth the mishaps, that there is no such thing as a perfect day, there's only striving towards in the face of no. And seeing what stories you discover accidentally along the way,

Andrew Sean Greer:

Especially after this pandemic and we all... I became very, very reclusive. Like a real hermit. Especially because I was working on a novel, there was no saying yes, there was nothing on offer. It was just being at home. And I have had to force myself when people are, like tonight there's the Italian Institute in San Francisco was like, "Do you want to come see rockstar Diodato singing in Italian?" And I'm like, "Yes."

Annmarie Kelly:

Yes.

Andrew Sean Greer:

And another friend's like, "I'm throwing a DJ party at this bar." And I'm like, "I'll do both of them." But I have a thing in the morning much like this one. So I'm like, I have to make sure I don't overdo it, but I guess I will totally do those. Why not?

Annmarie Kelly:

Yeah, say yes as often as possible. Say no occasionally, but what's the worst that could happen is you can have a great story is most of the time what happens. Another question that's asked of Arthur Less in this book, is it worth it being a writer? Is it worth it? So I'll ask you that as well. Is it worth it?

Andrew Sean Greer:

I was thinking about that just this morning. Well, because I think about my partner and what he has to go through while I'm working on a book, which is something that readers wouldn't think of. They think that maybe I go through a tortured artist phase, but they don't realize that the person who has to live with the tortured artist is... It's like living with someone who has a demon possession. There's nothing, what can you do? You can't exercise it. You just have to talk to the demon and live with the demon, to be with someone whose mood swings are not chemical, but are nonetheless imagined, because they have to do with something on a page you've never seen. I think that's hard. And there are books where I put friends and family through a lot for me to get through the book, and I don't think the book ended up... I should have actually worked harder. The book didn't end up the way I wanted, and so it was not worth it. And I hope the people around me can forgive me because they're like, "Oh, I see why he did that."

Annmarie Kelly:

Do you at least open the door from time to time and shout, "Champagne?"

Andrew Sean Greer:

No. Sometimes I'm in a good mood. I mean I cook dinner every night. It's not like I'm a terrible person. I make coffee in the morning, I make dinner at night, I'm pleasant to be around at those times. Somewhat. Sometimes not at dinner.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's excellent.

Andrew Sean Greer:

But the champagne, because that's another total arrogant moment, but that would be impossible to live with. The person's like, "Thank you. No, I don't want champagne right now."

Annmarie Kelly:

It's two in the afternoon.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Well if you had said a hard no that it was not worth it, I was going to suggest a side hustle of the Lessian trip advisor would be vacationers could call you, and now that I know that you've got reservationist skills, you know could book them on log raft trips or you could send them into canyons on donkeys, or you could offer them off, off, off, off Southern, not Broadway theater tours, where they have to carry the set in their transport convertible vans.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah, I just don't want any complaints. I'm not responsible for what happens. I'm going to set you up for failure. That's the name of the traveling.

Annmarie Kelly:

I actually think there'd be a market for that. Just you're guaranteeing someone, we're going to book it and it's not going to go as we planned and you'll never hear from us again. Just book it and go.

Andrew Sean Greer:

That's right.

Annmarie Kelly:

Oh, there are so many other lines I could talk about just like, "Do you know the problem with American writers? Commas." Or we could talk about the black velvet beard on a brown... No, it's a black velvet beard on a brown velvet suit, on a green velvet couch. I mean, I love the way that you play with language and it is as fun to read your prose as it must be perhaps unfun to have to deal with you while you're writing it. But I also know that your time is precious, and I want to wrap here, I always wrap with a few just multiple choicey questions to give people a glimpse of the man behind the man. So multiple choice here. Dogs or cats?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Dogs.

Annmarie Kelly:

Coffee or tea?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh, coffee.

Annmarie Kelly:

I was thinking back to, there's a handful of dogs that we meet, is it Tomboy? Is Tomboy the first dog we meet in this book? The girl Tomboy?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah. Of course it's a girl.

Annmarie Kelly:

I loved that because I assumed it was a boy as well. But no, I figured dogs as much.

Andrew Sean Greer:

It's a girl, it's a tomboy.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love that. I also took a moment, he has since passed away, but I had a hound, he was the first canine love of my life. So I appreciated that you set foot in a hound cemetery, because I wrote a eulogy from my hound and I felt so seen by this book.

Andrew Sean Greer:

There is one in Alabama.

Annmarie Kelly:

Of course there is.

Andrew Sean Greer:

And in fact there is a headstone that says, "He was not the best, but he was the best I ever had." I'm like, "Oh that's so awful."

Annmarie Kelly:

He was average but he was mine.

Andrew Sean Greer:

He was mine.

Annmarie Kelly:

Mountains or beach?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Mountains.

Annmarie Kelly:

Early bird or night owl?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Ooh, I don't know. I'm all over the place. I'm both.

Annmarie Kelly:

I know today it's both. Love or cheese.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh, that's a good question. I think it depends on your stage of life that one. I'll go love, but catch me at 70 I might go cheese.

Annmarie Kelly:

I love that that one comes right back. That comes right from the book, folks. It's plagiarism on my... It's allowed. Are you a risk taker or the person who always knows where the band aids are?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh, I don't know. Because I'm such a risk averse person, and yet I think like you, I end up taking the risk anyway. Well, the truth is, I fumble for where the band aids are. I buy them, but I don't remember where they are.

Annmarie Kelly:

Where do they always go? Okay, these are a few fill in the blanks. If I wasn't working as a writer, I would be a...

Andrew Sean Greer:

A line cook.

Annmarie Kelly:

What's a line cook? I know what a cook is, but what's a line cook do?

Andrew Sean Greer:

I'm not a chef, but I think I could fulfill the chef's desires. I could do the stuff.

Annmarie Kelly:

So make me that thing, and you just would just do it.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Yeah. You sous vide the steak, but then when they're like, "Steak, well, table 12." You sear it and then whatever. And then you get the beans and the pan and the fire's up. I think I could do that.

Annmarie Kelly:

I like it. I like it. What's-

Andrew Sean Greer:

Panicky.

Annmarie Kelly:

What's something quirky that folks don't usually know about you? This could be a like, could be a love, it could be a pet peeve.

Andrew Sean Greer:

One of my favorite hobbies is stain removal.

Annmarie Kelly:

So the water stain on my couch. You could just go to town on that?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh yeah. I mean mostly clothes, but definitely furniture. I know how to get things out. I can get out Sharpies.

Annmarie Kelly:

How do you get out a Sharpie stain? [inaudible 00:41:04]

Andrew Sean Greer:

I can get pout ballpoint pen, acetone.

Annmarie Kelly:

Acetone. So nail polish remover?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Nail polish remover. Yeah, you need to put a cloth under it and put the nail polish remover on top and then blot it and it goes under it into the other cloth and it's gone. I just did it the other day. It's great. Ballpoint pins is hairspray, which I'm not sure exists anymore.

Annmarie Kelly:

I'm a child of the eighties. I've always got hairspray in the back of a... Yeah, I could-

Andrew Sean Greer:

Hairspray takes out ballpoint pen. Yeah. And so on. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

All right.

Andrew Sean Greer:

You use a bathroom rust remover to get rid of yellow stains around your collar. Yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

This is excellent.

Andrew Sean Greer:

It really is a hobby.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's fantastic.

Andrew Sean Greer:

I'm a good source for that.

Annmarie Kelly:

All right, I got two more for you. What's your favorite ice cream?

Andrew Sean Greer:

I like the nocciola, the hazelnut and chocolate.

Annmarie Kelly:

Okay. So I know there's-

Andrew Sean Greer:

Gelato.

Annmarie Kelly:

... stracciatella, right, that's the little chocolate chips.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Stracciatellas.

Annmarie Kelly:

And so then this one has hazelnut and chocolate or hazelnut?

Andrew Sean Greer:

Hazelnut.

Annmarie Kelly:

Nocciola.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Nocciola is just hazelnut and a chocolatey thing. And then there's another one called, I think it's gianduja, which is chocolate with a little hazelnut. Those are both great.

Annmarie Kelly:

Okay. I'm going to be in Italy for Thanksgiving much to my family's, my delight and their chagrin. So I'm going to go in pursuit of these things.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Oh, yeah.

Annmarie Kelly:

Excellent. All right, last one, if we were to take a picture of you just really happy and doing something you love, what would we see you doing?

Andrew Sean Greer:

I think outside, dancing during the day.

Annmarie Kelly:

That's fantastic. I love that image. Hey, thank you Andrew Sean Greer, thank you for joining us today.

Andrew Sean Greer:

Thank you for having me. This has been a delight.

Annmarie Kelly:

You are a delight. And thank you for the gentle nudge that we should always quote, "Go get lost somewhere. It always does you good." I'm going to heed this advice and I'm just so grateful that for this character and for your work. Folks, Andrew Sean Greer's most recent book is called, Less Is Lost. You can find it at your local library or any indie store where books are sold. We are wishing all of you love and light wherever this day takes you. Be good to yourself and be good to one another, and we'll see you again soon on this wild and precious journey.

Wild Precious Life is a production of Evergreen Podcasts. Special thanks to executive producers Gerardo Orlando and Michael Deloya, producer Sarah Willgroup and audio engineer Ian Douglas. Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

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