Andrew Sean Greer

"For Arthur Less, life is surprisingly good: he is a moderately accomplished novelist in a steady relationship with his partner, Freddy Pelu. But nothing lasts: the death of an old lover and a sudden financial crisis has Less running away from his problems yet again as he accepts a series of literary gigs that send him on a crisscrossing adventure across the US. Less roves across the "Mild Mild West," across the South and to his mid-Atlantic birthplace,...

"We think we know the ones we love." So Pearlie Cook begins her indirect and devastating exploration of the mystery at the heart of every relationship: how we can ever truly know another person. It is 1953 and Pearlie, a dutiful young housewife, finds herself living in the Sunset District in San Francisco, caring not only for her husband's fragile health but also for her son, who is afflicted with polio. Then, one Saturday morning, a stranger appears...

Featuring guest editor contributions by the author of "Less," the latest edition of the respected literary annual collects twenty top-selected short stories from the previous year.