An Evening of Long Goodbyes
by Paul Murray
Review
'An Evening of Long Goodbyes' / This Man Is an Island
Date Finished: May 22nd 2022
I have spread myself too thin: I’m reading three books at once and making little headway on any of them. Why do I do this? Granted one’s a short story collection and the other is an eminently dip-in-and-out-able work of nonfiction, but trying to balance a fiction work alongside too? Madness! The cure, of course, is to disregard all three for a bit and pick up a different book altogether. Paul Murray to the rescue!
“And life isn’t like the movies: there’s no ominous swell to the soundtrack, no fatalistic overhead shot, nothing to tell you that this moment is the one your life will turn on; instead it’s like a train silently switching tracks, sheering off mid-journey into a whole other part of the night.”
Charles Hythloday has been doing his best to squander the family fortune, holding endless parties in the grand family estate of Amaurot, which is crumbling in the wake of his father’s passing and his mother’s stint in rehab. Charles’ social drinking has turned to reclusiveness, and strange things have been happening. The help, the Slavic Mrs P., has been making lavish dishes in the small hours of the night, he’s convinced that his wannabe-actress sister Bel’s new working class beau is casing the joint (bits and pieces of furniture and ornaments have started disappearing after all), and on top of that he’s started seeing strange people, fairies and angels within the grounds at night. Something is going on at Amaurot, and Charles doesn’t want to get to the bottom of it! Unfortunately, events are going to conspire against him on that front.
After Skippy Dies, which I loved, I attempted to read Murray’s third novel, The Mark and the Void, but found it didn’t really grab me. I wasn’t sure what to expect of his debut, but An Evening of Long Goodbyes has all the shaggy charm of Skippy Dies, that same sharp prose and hysterical realist outlook. It’s hard not to warm to Charles’ curmudgeonly elitism and general inability to gauge anything that’s going on, and the gags fly thick and fast. The more delicate and profound articulations of meaning and love from Skippy Diesaren’t so much in evidence here, but An Evening of Long Goodbyes rollicks along at a pretty consuming pace, and it’s hard not to be intrigued by the more mysterious aspects of the novel. We might be ahead of Charles, but that doesn’t mean we’re ahead of Murray.
“Names were important, if only one could work out what they meant.”
An Evening of Long Goodbyes is something of a shaggy dog story, sprawling and chaotic. I never knew where it was going, in both a good way but also with a little doubt as to whether Murray did. But the novel never deviates too far from where it needs to be, and, in the end, Murray pulls off the grand trick, just. It’s a strong debut, for sure, not without its flaws, a je nais sais quoi, something that would tie the room together and, though you don’t know what, its absence is nevertheless palpable. With that said, it is, broadly, a very enjoyable novel, a little overwritten, but effortlessly charming and with that wonderful maximalist prose that I always enjoy. Murray doesn’t disappoint, and is, indeed, a worthy rival to Zadie Smith, giving off White Teeth vibes in his best moments. It’s a little ropey in places, but this is a surprisingly eloquent satire on inequality that remains pertinent despite being nearly twenty years old now. It’s Paul Murray, and I’m happy.
8/10
CHRIS GREGORY BOOKS
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