For Arthur Less, life is going surprisingly well: 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 zigzagging adventure across the US.

Arthur Less will almost fall in love in Paris, almost fall to his death in Berlin, barely escape a Saharan sandstorm, and encounter the last person on Earth he wants to face. Through it all, there is his first love. And there is his last.