The Bee Sting: A Novel

One of The New York Times Top 10 Books of the Year
Winner of the An Post Irish Book of the Year, the Nero Gold Prize, and the Nero Book Award for Fiction
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the Writers' Prize for Fiction
Finalist for the Kirkus Prize for Fiction

One of The New Yorker's Essential Reads of 2023. One of The Washington Post's 10 Best Books of 2023. One of TIME's 10 Best Fiction Books of the Year. Named a Best Book of the Year by NPR, The Guardian, The Economist, New York Public Library, BBC, and more.

From the author of Skippy Dies comes Paul Murray's The Bee Sting, an irresistibly funny, wise, and thought-provoking tour de force about family, fortune, and the struggle to be a good person when the world is falling apart.

The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under--but Dickie is spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. His wife, Imelda, is selling off her jewelry on eBay and half-heartedly dodging the attention of fast-talking cattle farmer Big Mike, while their teenage daughter, Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge drink her way through her final exams. As for twelve-year-old PJ, he's on the brink of running away.

If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go? To the infamous bee sting that ruined Imelda's wedding day? To the car crash one year before Cass was born? All the way back to Dickie at ten years old, standing in the summer garden with his father, learning how to be a real man?

The Bee Sting, Paul Murray's exuberantly entertaining new novel, is a tour de force: a portrait of postcrash Ireland, a tragicomic family saga, and a dazzling story about the struggle to be good at the end of the world.

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656 pages

Average rating: 6.93

209 RATINGS

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13 REVIEWS

Community Reviews

PaulaJane
Nov 28, 2024
9/10 stars
This contemporary Irish family drama is the bomb!!! The characters are well written and you connect with every one. The novel is long 600 pages but doesn’t drag. It builds and fires up beautifully at the end. Our bookclub of 8 gave it five stars. We were all animated and talked endlessly about all the different characters and themes that came together to create a very interesting story.
Torn_KD
Nov 14, 2024
8/10 stars
The characters were really enjoyable and despite me worrying I wasn't going to relate to at least one of the four family members I was surprised that all of them were relatable.
Anonymous
Sep 13, 2024
8/10 stars
this book was LENGTHY. do I regret reading it - no. do I recommend - maybe. honestly reading theories about the ending and symbolism of the book made me appreciate it a lot more. I struggled in the middle of the book with Imelda’s POV (although I understood the choice to forgo punctuation). After I pushed through that section, I couldn’t put the book down (especially any Cass POV). Overall, stunning prose but such a depressing book/characters.
Anonymous
Aug 15, 2024
8/10 stars
Rollicking? Exuberantly comic? What did I miss?
Sad, unhappy people lack of communication in families
Bullying men, self-centred individuals.
Overall though, it was thought-provoking, debating at the Hist was interesting, the first law of debating, which side are you on?
Riches to rags and vice versa, small-mindedness.
EttyJames
Jul 23, 2024
4/10 stars
There was a lot if hype about this book and I was very intrigued to read it. In all honesty, I was disappointed. It took me such a long time to actually get into this book (a very long book!), it felt a task to read it initially. But just over about half way through I started to enjoy it and thought I was starting to understand the authors style and book’s purpose a little clearer, and started to feel more invested in the characters, there was some really excellent writing (I really liked how he wrote as Imelda would due to her upbringing), and there was some really good content around Dickie that I wasn’t expecting at all, which again was brilliantly written and heart hitting. I liked that we got to know each of the characters well but often felt the detail was way too much. And I get that some may find the ending clever, but I felt deflated, I didn’t enjoy this ending at all, very disappointing and not at all clever (in fact a little arrogant) . This book was simply just not for me I’m afraid, I felt the return on my investment of time was rather cheated. Such a shame as I really had become invested.

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