Paul Murray Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Anthologies

Paul Murray
Paul Murray was born in Ireland in the year 1975, and is the son of a teacher and a professor of Anglo-Irish Drama at University College Dublin.

He attended the University of East Anglia, receiving a master’s degree in creative writing. Paul studied English literature at Trinity College in Dublin. Paul also went to Blackrock College in south Dublin, which was an experience that later provided the basis for the school in his novel “Skippy Dies”. He is a former bookseller and lives in Dublin.

Paul also spent some time in Barcelona, working as an English teacher. It was a time he did not enjoy at all. He has described it as an unhappy and brief stint teaching English to a Catalan businessman, who only pointed out the many faults in Paul’s grammar he did not know about before.

Paul has described Thomas Pynchon’s “Gravity’s Rainbow” as being a very influential book for him.

Originally, “Skippy Dies” was only supposed to be a short story. His initial plan was for a two-hander about a teacher and one of the guy’s students. Once he began writing about the school, it kept on growing. He found that setting to be quite liberating for him, since there were so many situations and characters it allowed. It allowed him to make the book a coming-of-age tale, a love story, a midlife crisis story, he could make it dark, funny, and frightening, all at the same time.

“An Evening of Long Goodbyes” was shortlisted for the Whitbread Prize. “Skippy Dies” was nominated for The Man Booker Prize and the Costa Book Award, both for Best Novel. “The Mark and the Void” won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Writing for Best Novel.

Paul’s debut novel, called “An Evening of Long Goodbyes”, was released in the year 2003.

“An Evening of Long Goodbyes” is the first stand alone novel and was released in the year 2003. Charles Hythloday observes the world from the comfy confines of Amaurot, his family estate, and doesn’t care a whole lot for what he sees. He prefers the black-and-white sanctum of classic film, particularly anything that stars the beautiful Gene Tierney to the rumbling and roiling of modern day Dublin. Charles, age twenty-four, aims to bring back the last lifestyle of the aristocratic country gentleman. Have an ever-replenished drink, contemplative walks, and afternoons that are filled with canapes that are prepared by Mrs. P., the Bosnian housekeeper.

However, his cozy existence is about to face a rather serious shake-up. Bel (his sister, a hopeless romantic, and an aspiring actress) has just brought Amaurot (her recent and to Charles) most ill-advised boyfriend. Frank is round and hulking, and looks like nothing so much as a huge dresser, probably a Swedish one. He talks endlessly of pubs and brawls using an accent that brings Charles to tears and bets on greyhounds. His entrance into the lives of the Hythlodays just happens to coincide with the vanishing of a more and more of household baubles and antiques.

Quickly, Bel and Charles quickly find that missing heirlooms are the least of their problems; they just aren’t as rich as they always believed. The family fortune teeters in the balance, and Charles has to do something that he swore he never would. Get a job. Booted out into the mean streets of Dublin, he is just as unprepared for real life as Frank would for a cotillion. As it turns out that real life is just a bit unprepared for Charles, too.

Fans found this to be a rare character driven novel that is rich in humor and wit that is accompanied by moments of endearing poignancy as well as an engaging story line.

“Skippy Dies” is the second stand alone novel and was released in the year 2010. Ruprecht Van Doren is a genius with hobbies that include the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence and extremely difficult mathematics. Daniel ‘Skippy’ Juster is only his roommate. No one pays them much attention, in the grand old Dublin institution which is Seabrook College for Boys.

However, when Skippy falls for the Frisbee-playing Siren from the girls’ school next door, named Lori, all of a sudden, people are taking an interest. Including Carl, who is the official school psychopath and part-time drug dealer. As his teachers fight over modernization, and Ruprecht tries opening a parallel universe, Skippy is heading for a showdown, in love’s name. It comes in the form of a fatal doughnut-eating race that just one person is going to survive.

This rather tragedy is going to explode Seabrook’s century-old complacency and it will bring all sorts of secrets out into the light. Until the students and teachers alike begin discovering the fragile lines that divide betrayal from love, past from present, and even life from death, have gotten impossible to locate.

Readers enjoyed every bit of this novel. From the compelling story, the lovable characters, and a considerable payload, all of which made this novel tough to put down for too long. The novel makes you cry and laugh at different points.

“The Mark and the Void” is the third stand alone novel and was released in the year 2015. Claude Martingale, while he is marooned at his banking job in the insular and bewilderingly damp realm that is Ireland, gets approached by Paul, a down-on-his-luck author, who is looking for his next great subject. Claude discovers that his life gets increasingly more exciting under Paul’s fictionalizing influence, and even falls in love with a beautiful waitress.

Paul’s plan is not at all what it appears, and neither is Paul’s employer, the investment Bank of Torabundo. It is a bank that swells right through dodgy takeovers and its derivatives trading until. Well it is probably obvious how it will all shake out by the end.

Another of Paul Murray’s novels that is filled to the brim with a lot of humor, and readers found themselves laughing out loud, even while in public places. Paul even does a good job of showing the total bizarre nature of the financial world.

One Response to “Paul Murray”

1. Connie Gilbert: 7 months ago

   Paul Murray suggested that Proust’s In Search of Lost Time was a “best book”. I would like to know, according to Mr. Murray, what is the best translation.

   Thank you.

   Reply