Author of the novel The Less Said
Forthcoming from What Books Press in October 2026
Publication Date: October 6, 2026
Testimonials
Molly McCully Brown
Author of PLACES I'VE TAKEN MY BODY"Paul Bergstraesser's slender and endlessly surprising novel is about the myriad ways the world grows remarkable when we attend to it closely. Funny, heartbreaking, and always off-kilter, THE LESS SAID reminds us that 'dying is unspeakable, but so too is living' and, if we're lucky, we get to spend some improbable and accompanied years straining toward language for both."
Kate Northrop
Author of HOMEWRECKER"In THE LESS SAID, Paul Bergstraesser conjures a dying man. This dying man, P, conjures another man, Edward Sipe, who perhaps is P, or better yet, his dance partner. And THE LESS SAID is a dance, one in which not only our great loves but our daily routines are given movement and shape. What kind of dance? A kickline, of course. Or a street dance, or quick two-step made-up while washing dinner dishes. THE LESS SAID unfolds, out of death, glittering possibilities."
Rattawut Lapcharoensap
Author of SIGHTSEEING"In THE LESS SAID, more is communicated. Everything is here in this remarkable short novel--illness, loneliness, love, family, storytelling, memory, and parking lot design. With great wit, precision, and lyricism, Paul Bergstraesser mines the granular details of one man's journey for urgent and eloquent questions not only about the way we die but also, in the end, the way we live."
Alyson Hagy
Author of SCRIBE"THE LESS SAID counters the very real pall of death with soul and wit. It parries pain with humor, grief with irreverence. Beautifully written, boldly imagined, Paul Bergstraesser's inventive novel deftly bears us through its narrator's final days with whip-smart intelligence and big, big heart."
Franz Kafka, The Trial
Thomas Bernhard, Correction
Merrill Gilfillan, Talk Across Water
Annie Ernaux, Happening
Theodore Dreiser, An American Tragedy
Dan O'Brien, Wild Idea
Paul Horgan, The Peach Stone
Julie Schumacher, Dear Committee Members
Emmanuel Bove, Henri Duchemin and His Shadows
Contact
- Wyoming, United States