Paul Murray's debut heralds the arrival of a major new Irish talent. His protagonist is endearing and wildly witty - part P. G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster, with a cantankerous dash of "A Confederacy of Dunces" Ignatius J. Reilly thrown in. With its rollicking plot and colorful characters, An Evening of Long Goodbyes is a delightful and erudite comedy of epic proportions. [Random House]
Critic Reviews
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Outstanding
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Kirkus Reviews
Riotously funny from the start, the sharp edge of the author's satire turns this tale into something very different from comedy by the end and reveals Murray as a master of narrative sleight of hand.
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Outstanding
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Los Angeles Times Mark Rozzo
Throughout An Evening of Long Goodbyes, every joke, every observation, every name reverberates with playful nuance and nervy significance; the end result is a gleeful tweak of the New Ireland's proud nose.
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Outstanding
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Publishers Weekly
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.
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Outstanding
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Booklist Joanne Wilkinson
This is witty, wonderfully rich reading. [1 June 2004, p.1702]
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Outstanding
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The Independent Murrough O'Brien
There's not a dud line, not a false note. Even Charles's paranoia is sympathetically portrayed. Against all odds the prevailing note of this formidably funny book is of pathos.
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Outstanding
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Washington Post Nuala O'Faolain
As the book progresses it becomes clear that Paul Murray, though this is his first novel and he is not yet 30, can do almost anything.
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Favorable
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Village Voice Ed Park
Dubliner Paul Murray's laugh-laden debut, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, is thankfully more like four or five long evenings' worth of companionable reading.
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Favorable
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Wall Street Journal Elizabeth Bukowski
This is a comic novel that carries a bittersweet sting.
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Favorable
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Christian Science Monitor Ron Charles
Clueless as Charles is, his acidic sarcasm provides a delicious commentary on the vacuous cant of employee motivation efforts, the venal world of temp agencies, the slave conditions of immigrant workers.
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Mixed
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Entertainment Weekly Thom Geier
But this shaggy-greyhound story by Paul Murray, can't quite sustain 424 pages -- let alone a stab at earnestness toward the end.
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Mixed
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The New York Times Book Review Stephen Amidon
Once Murray casts his hero out into the world, however, the narrator begins to lose his voice...The result is a novel whose 400-plus pages begin to weigh on the reader not long after the midpoint.
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Mixed
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San Francisco Chronicle Irina Reyn
Unfortunately, the novel comes to a satisfying conclusion about a third of the way through the book, while the rest seems as if the author is straining to stretch a brisk, wickedly pleasurable social satire onto a larger canvas.
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Mixed
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The Guardian Alfred Hickling
I had initial problems comprehending the bleary, rambling tone of Murray's narrator, but found that if you read it in the voice of Dylan Moran it makes perfect sense.
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