An Evening of Long Goodbyes

Imagine Bertie Wooster getting a real job in, perhaps, the assembly line at a bread factory and you'll have some idea of the incongruousness of Charles Hythloday, redoubtable hero of Irish author Paul Murray's excellent debut novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes. Though Murray's story has elements of melancholy that the endearingly obtuse P.G. Wodehouse…