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From Publishers Weekly
If Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster were plopped into the 21st century, his adventures might resemble those of Charles Hythloday, the buffoonish hero of Murray's insouciant romp, shortlisted for the Whitbread. For three years, ever since his father died, 20-something Charles has been pottering around the family's crumbling seaside estate near Dublin, mixing himself gimlets and watching old movies. He sees himself as attempting to perfect sprezzatura, "the contemplative life of the country gentleman, in harmony with his status and history"; his formidable sister, Bel, and everyone else, however, view him as a shiftless drunkard, and Charles's own narration leaves little doubt whose judgment is more accurate. The reappearance of Charles's mother, who's been away at a clinic for alcoholics and is now determined to reform the rest of the family, means that his allowance is promptly cut off and he's required to get a job. This proves to be predictably difficult (a tech recruiter says, " 'So in short, Charles, it's fair to say you've never worked for a living, is that right?' "). Meanwhile, the family's Bosnian housekeeper smuggles her grown-up children into the country, and Bel starts a theater company at Amaurot with the housekeeper's striking daughter, Mirela, who's much too clever for smitten Charles. Murray's blend of drawing-room comedy and postindustrial hilarity is deft and jaunty, and well-timed snippets of foreshadowing keep the story moving briskly. If the characters occasionally seem too broadly drawn, they always operate in service to the novel's witty and satirical aims. This is a breezy, highly entertaining read.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Booklist
*Starred Review* Addicted to Gene Tierney movies and to the ever-diminishing contents of his wine cellar, 24-year-old indolent aristocrat Charles Hythloday is doing his best to avoid dealing with his crumbling estate. Older sister Bel, a worrier of such herculean proportions that she was convinced their pet dog was suffering from a dizzying array of existential terrors, is doing her best to get her brother to engage with life. After it is discovered that Charles has inadvertently filed a series of foreclosure notices in the junk drawer, he is forced to do the unthinkable--get a job. Surprisingly enough, he is quite happy working as a bread straightener in the yule-log division of Mr. Dough, where he engages in wacky lunchtime conversations with his Latvian coworkers, while industrious Bel throws in with an actors' troupe, turning the family manse into a theater. With inspired lunacy and increasing hilarity, first-novelist Murray takes readers on a whirlwind tour of Ireland's new economy and changing population. Most impressive, though, is the way he so easily moves from farce to poignancy and back again. Whether it's Charles' dream interlude, in which Yeats makes him a mean gimlet, or the greyhound races, where all the dogs' names seem to comment on his state of mind (Trouble in Paradise), this is witty, wonderfully rich reading. Joanne Wilkinson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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A black wind was blowing outside the bow window. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most helpful customer reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Improving Book,
By A Customer
This review is from: Evening Of Long Goodbye (Paperback)
This book really hit the spot for me. If Bertie Wooster were to wander into the world of "TrainSpotting", this would be the result....A witty, moving mixture of P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Nick Hornby, Irvine Welsh, and Stephen Fry. Like Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster stories, this book is written in the first person, which makes it possible for every sentence to be funny. Ranks very high among the wine and spirits. Highly recommended.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta) Amazon.com:
3.7 out of 5 stars (13 customer reviews) 15 of 17 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
Some wickedly funny writing in its first part,
By Debra Hamel - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: An Evening of Long Goodbyes: A Novel (Hardcover)
Twenty-four-year-old Charles Hythloday resides at Amaurot, his family's estate some ten miles outside of Dublin, with his sister Bel, an aspiring actress, and their Bosnian housekeeper Mrs. P. Charles wiles away his days in apparent indolence and drunkenness, mourning a love affair gone sour, watching Gene Tierney movies into the night, overseeing the construction of a folly on the property. But to Charles's mind his purpose in life is a serious one: he means to revive "the contemplative life of the country gentleman, in harmony with his status and history." For the first third of An Evening of Long Goodbyes Charles is thus an amusing anachronism, a Wodehousian character thrust into a less polite modern world. This makes for some wickedly funny writing, both in dialogue and narrative. (Out to a seedy pub with Bel and her Golem of a boyfriend Frank, Charles looks around with some unease at his fellow drinkers. "Was I the only one in evening wear?") But one senses that Charles's retreat from society is motivated by an underlying sadness.Unfortunately, Charles's idyllic lifestyle cannot last. Events conspire to push him out of Amaurot and into productive society, where he engages in activities--paying work, for example--that were previously unthinkable. Charles grows as a human being, developing empathy, for example, and he is eventually compelled to confront the imperfections of his childhood at Amaurot, which he had long glorified. While Charles's development is interesting to watch, he becomes a less interesting character as he changes from a wry commentator on a society that is alien to him to a productive participant in that society. The book, too, loses charm as it moves from the farce of its early pages to the melodrama of Charles's post-Amaurot life. Still worth reading, a lighter book that kept Charles in tails and gimlets would surely have garnered five stars. Reviewed by Debra Hamel, author of Trying Neaira: The True Story of a Courtesan's Scandalous Life in Ancient Greece 7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A bumpy ride,
By E.B. - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: An Evening of Long Goodbyes: A Novel (Paperback)
This one defies easy categorization. A disconcerting mixture of satire, melodrama, fantasy and farce. Unlike several of the reviewers, I felt that the account of Charles lolling about his ancestral home was forced and stagey. The dialog spoken by the pantomime characters is predictable and empty. Charles's take on the Irish economic boom, the so-called Celtic Tiger, however, is accurate, deft and very funny. His completely underwhelmed response to Ireland's ballyhooed economic miracle is worth the many speed-ups, slow-downs and improbablities that drive the over-heated plot.
11 of 13 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Improving Book,
By A Customer - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Evening Of Long Goodbye (Paperback)
This book really hit the spot for me. If Bertie Wooster were to wander into the world of "TrainSpotting", this would be the result....A witty, moving mixture of P.G. Wodehouse, Evelyn Waugh, Nick Hornby, Irvine Welsh, and Stephen Fry. Like Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster stories, this book is written in the first person, which makes it possible for every sentence to be funny. Ranks very high among the wine and spirits. Highly recommended.
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