The Bee Sting

The Bee Sting is a book in which a series of bad things happen to a group of people with whom the reader sympathises, and becomes fond of, even though the choices they make are often poor. Yet despite the bleakness of the story, it is a hugely enjoyable novel, described by the Guardian as ‘pure pleasure’. How do you think the author achieves the feat of taking potentially depressing subject matter and producing such a rollicking and entertaining read? 

The novel begins with long sections describing events from the point of view of each of the four main characters. But in the final third, the chapters get shorter and shorter as the story moves towards its devastating conclusion. What do you think the author was trying to convey by giving each family member ever-shorter passages as the novel goes on, and does it affect both your reading of the book and the pace at which the story unfolds? 

In the book’s final third, as the tension builds, the narrative switches to a second-person view. Why do you think the author does this, and how does it affect your reading of the story or your relationship with the characters? 

The sections of the book presented from Imelda’s point of view have no punctuation. Do you think the author wrote her chapters in this way to reflect her manic state of mind, her lack of formal education, or for some other reason? And why is Imelda the only character written in this way? 

Near the beginning of the book, Elaine tells Cass the funny story of the bee sting that derailed Imelda and Dickie’s wedding, and which seems to explain the lack of wedding photos in the Barnes’s home. When you read this passage for the first time, did you suspect that the story of the bee was possibly not true? 

While the Barnes family’s troubles appear to have come to a head in the wake of Ireland’s recent economic crash, the root of their problems go back generations. As the book’s cover blurb asks: ‘If you wanted to change this story, how far back would you have to go?’ How would you answer that question, and who, above all, is responsible for the family’s tragic circumstances? 

Dickie’s brother, Frank, the love of Imelda’s life, looms over the couple’s marriage. Discuss how Frank’s death shapes the events of the book and the way that certain characters have never come to terms with his passing.

The book begins with the line ‘In the next town over, a man had killed his family’, foreshadowing events later in the novel, and hinting at how the behaviour of several fathers in the book damages their children in different ways. Discuss how the author portrays various destructive fathers in The Bee Sting, and the way multiple characters are dealing with the fallout of their fathers’ actions. 

Both the past and the future terrorise several characters in the book – they are either haunted by experiences earlier in their lives or terrified by what might happen in the months ahead, whether that be a beating from a bully, terrible exam results, financial ruin, a secret being revealed or the end of the world. Discuss how the author traps the Barnes family in a panicked present as the past and future bear down on them. 

The shadow of climate change hangs over the novel, beginning with Cass learning that her father’s car business is responsible for a shocking amount of carbon emissions and leading to Dickie’s increasingly desperate plans to survive a climate apocalypse. To what extent do you think the book could be characterised as a novel about climate anxiety?