A struggling novelist travels the world to avoid an awkward wedding in this hilarious Pulitzer Prize-winning novel full of ""arresting lyricism and beauty"" (The New York Times Book Review). Winner Of The Pulitzer Prize National Bestseller. A New York Times Notable Book of 2017. A Washington Post Top Ten Book of 2017. A San Francisco Chronicle Top Ten Book of 2017. Longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence, the Lambda Award, and the California Book Award. Who says you can't run away from your problems? You are a failed novelist about to turn fifty. A wedding invitation arrives in the mail- your boyfriend of the past nine years is engaged to someone else. You can't say yes-it would be too awkward-and you can't say no-it would look like defeat. On your desk are a series of invitations to half-baked literary events around the world. Question- How do you arrange to skip town? Answer- You accept them all. What would possibly go wrong? Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape to a Moroccan ski chalet from a Saharan sandstorm, accidentally book himself as the (only) writer-in-residence at a Christian Retreat Center in Southern India.