“We’re living in a society!” the Seinfeld character George Costanza sputters when strangers wrong him. It’s a justly famous line. Seinfeld’s nine seasons are an extended ode to irritation as the greatest enforcer of social norms, made funnier by the fact that the show’s protagonists are all irritating. The series demonstrates the joys of fictional annoyance. An encounter that could wreck a day in real life can, on-screen or in a book, give the audience an enjoyable sense of righteousness—or recognition. Annoying characters let us admit that we might be annoying too. The novelist Andrew Martin follows the Seinfeld principle closely. His 2018 debut, Early Work, and his follow-up story collection, Cool for America, feature too-smart Millennials who have too much time on their hands and use it poorly. Their behavior often strains the limits of readers’ tolerance, and their troubles tend to be richly deserved. But like Jonathan Franzen, his direct predecessor in literary annoyance, Martin uses his gifts as a prose stylist to get readers to remain with these aggravating protagonists long enough …