[A blog post unpublished as a formal review.]

I just finished Paul Murray’s An Evening of Long Goodbyes. Like the protagonist, Charles Hythloday, the novel is incredibly lazy. I’ve been reading it for about a month. Charles is, frankly speaking, a ponce. He chiefly specializes in doing absolutely nothing but daydreaming about restoring the old aristocratic air to his family home. Since it is his voice that narrates the novel, it often moves slowly and a bit unreliably through its plot. (more…)