Paul Murray was born in Dublin in 1975 and is the author of An Evening of Long Goodbyes, Skippy Dies, The Mark and the Void and The Bee Sting. An Evening of Long Goodbyes was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Award and nominated for the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Skippy Dies was shortlisted for the Costa Novel Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and longlisted for the Booker Prize. The Mark and the Void won the Everyman Wodehouse Prize. The Bee Sting won the Nero Book of the Year Award and the An Post Irish Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Writers' Prize for Fiction and the Kirkus Prize for Fiction. Paul Murray lives in Dublin.
It can't be overstated how purely pleasurable The Bee Sting is to
read. Murray's brilliant new novel, about a rural Irish clan,
posits the author as Dublin's answer to Jonathan Franzen . . . A
650-page slab of compulsive high-grade entertainment, The Bee Sting
oozes pathos while being very funny to boot . . . Murray's
observational gifts and A-game phrase-making render almost every
page - every line, it sometimes seems - abuzz with fresh and funny
insights . . . At its core this is a novel concerned with the ties
that bind, secrets and lies, love and loss. They're all here,
brought to life with captivating vigour in a first-class
performance to cherish
*Observer (Anthony Cummins)*
The Bee Sting is the finest novel that Murray has yet written and
will surely be one of the books of 2023 . . . It bears comparison
to the brilliant comic writer Jonathan Coe... But Murray is his own
writer, capable of keeping a multi-faceted and compulsive plot
moving along with alacrity and confidence, while seamlessly
blending drama, comedy and heartbreak... For 13 years, Paul Murray
has been best known as the author of Skippy Dies. That, I suspect,
is about to change
*Sunday Independent*
Immersive, brilliantly structured, beautifully written, so dense
yet so compelling, [and] as laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply
disturbing . . . The Bee Sting is as ambitious as anything that has
gone before, but with a focus and shape that grants it great depth
as well as breadth. Seriously, all you need is this, your suntan
lotion and a few days off work and you're good to go . . . I didn't
see the plot twists coming. And they keep on coming, And coming
again . . . I began with an ovation. I'll end abruptly, and in
awe... Paul Murray, the undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish
tragicomedy, has done it again
*The Spectator (Ian Samson)*
The most enjoyable new novel I came across this year. A sprawling,
Franzen-esque saga about the Barnes family in Ireland recovering
from the 2008 financial crisis, it’s an amazing piece of realist
fiction, full-bodied, multi-narrative; a huge swing by Murray
*Observer*
A triumph. The Bee Sting deserves all the praise I am heaping on
it. It is generous, immersive, sharp-witted and devastating; the
sort of novel that becomes a friend for life
*Financial Times (John Self)*
Expertly foreshadowed and so intricately put together, a
brilliantly funny, deeply sad portrait of an Irish family in crisis
. . . Murray is triumphantly back on home turf - troubled
adolescents, regretful adults, secrets signposted and exquisitely
revealed, each line soaked in irony ranging from the gentle to the
savage . . . We live though hundreds of pages on tenterhooks, and
the suspense and revelations keep coming until the end [...] He is
brilliant on fathers and sons, sibling rivalry, grief,
self-sabotage and self-denial, as well as the terrible weakness
humans have for magical thinking... A tragicomic triumph, you won't
read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year
*Guardian (Justine Jordan)*
This bumper novel is already gaining plaudits as the book of the
summer, and if it's a meaty, heart punching, expertly executed
family saga you need this August, then you can stop the search now
. . . Murray delivers scarcely a duff sentence in a 600-page novel
that's pure unadulterated pleasure. It's been compared to Jonathan
Franzen's The Corrections; I'd argue it's better than that
*Daily Mail (Claire Allfree)*
No one writes tragicomedy as good as this . . . Both brilliant
entertainment and a penetrating look at the human condition, as
heavy with pathos as it is rich with humour. And if 650 pages asks
a lot of the reader, in this case it more than delivers
*iNews*
Delightfully rackety, raucously funny... The Bee Sting is on a par
with Skippy Dies, Murray's most beloved book, and certainly exceeds
it in ambition. A masterpiece
*Irish Independent*
Murray is a natural storyteller who knows when to withhold, to
indulge, to surprise. He specialises, like Dickens, in lengthy
sagas that are mammoth in scope, generous with detail and
backstory, flush with humour and colourful characters, all of it
steeped in social realism . . . Ambitious, expansive, hugely
entertaining tragicomic fiction
*Irish Times (Sarah Gilmartin)*
Carefully paced, brilliantly convincing and helped along by plenty
of subtle satire . . . A huge, marbled wagyu steak of a novel that
ranges confidently from humane to horrifying. It's a classic family
saga in the mode of The Corrections or The Sound and the Fury . . .
Murray delights in taking a stock type - the sullen pubescent, the
frazzled mother - and exploding it with ambiguity and empathy . . .
An immensely enjoyable piece of expert craftsmanship
*The Times (James Riding)*
This novel is as generous, expansive, and glorious as a cathedral,
as intimate as pillow-talk, and as funny and heartbreaking as
nothing you've read before. Paul Murray may just be the most
spellbinding storyteller writing today. A magisterial piece of
work
*Neel Mukherjee, author of 'The Lives of Others'*
Bold [and] expansive . . . Paul Murray is consistently inventive,
observant and funny. He is on intimate terms with this preteen boy,
this teenage girl, this lost middle-aged man and this semi-educated
woman, and he knows how to make them vivid . . . The pages turn
rapidly as farce and tragedy converge, the latter threatening to
get the upper hand
*Times Literary Supplement*
Utterly absorbing . . . Every perfectly tooled sentence slips down
as cleanly as an ice-cold Negroni
*Daily Mail ‘2023 Summer Reads’*
[The Bee Sting] reads like an instant classic . . . Murray is a
fantastically witty and empathetic writer, and he dazzles by
somehow bringing the great sprawling randomness of life to
glamorously choreographed climaxes. He is essentially interested in
the moral conflicts of our lives, and he handles his characters and
their failings with heartbreaking tenderness
*The Washington Post*
Murray’s writing is pure joy — propulsive, insightful and seeded
with hilarious observations . . . Through the Barneses’ countless
personal dramas, Murray explores humanity’s endless contradictions:
How brutal and beautiful life is. How broken and also full of
potential. How endlessly fraught and persistently promising.
Whether or not we can ever truly change our course, the hapless
Barneses will keep you hoping, even after you turn the novel’s last
page
*New York Times*
A family lurches into financial and emotional crisis in full view
of judgmental neighbours in this astute, remorselessly funny novel
about how people are invariably more complex than they first appear
. . . Murray tackles some of the biggest issues facing our society
in a thoughtful, tragicomic novel exploring smalltown society and
social class
*Daily Mirror (Huston Gilmore)*
The overall tapestry Murray weaves is not one of desolation but of
hope. This is a book that showcases one family’s incredible love
and resilience even as their world crumbles around them
*New York Times, ‘Best Books of 2023’*
Fluid, funny and clever, exceptionally smartly structured . . .
There's laughter in every other line, but there's also a compassion
and a midlife wisdom at work
*Literary Review (Paul Genders)*
Funny, dark, moving and deeply humane. It's also driven by an
inexorable tragic force, and Murray's intricate narrative dexterity
makes it very easy to keep turning all those hundreds of pages
*Observer (Summer Reads - Mark O’Connell)*
This epic, many-layered tragicomedy of an Irish family in crisis is
as pleasurable to read as it is emotionally devastating
*Guardian ('Summer Stories')*
Breathtaking, blackly comic, Murray's style is entirely and
distinctively his own . . . Handling the plot as if it were a Rubik
cube, [he] gives each character their voice in a carousel of
first-person accounts, tracking backwards and into the present . .
. The Bee Sting is an immersion in the tragedy of
what-might-have-been
*Herald (Rosemary Goring)*
The tale of a dysfunctional family trying to hold things together.
It's a thing of beauty, a novel that will fill your heart
*Observer, 'Fiction to look out for in 2023'*
The Bee Sting has resulted in Murray being heralded "Dublin's
Jonathan Franzen" . . . No one does bittersweet comic novels quite
like Murray - fans of his 2010 boarding school comedy Skippy Dies
will be aching to get their hands on this
*iNews (Leila Slimani)*
The book I’ve recommended most this year – and had the most
enthusiastic feedback about, a whopping 656 pages later – is
without doubt Paul Murray’s Booker-shortlisted tragicomedy, The Bee
Sting . . . combines freewheeling hilarity with savage irony,
surprise reveals and generations-deep sadness; it offers the
immersive pleasures that perhaps only a fat family saga can
bring
*Guardian, 'Best Books of 2023'*
I experienced just about every possible human emotion while reading
The Bee Sting, and at an intensity I have not felt with a work of
fiction for a long time. Its ambition and scale are astonishing,
and as a sheer technical feat of storytelling it is remarkable.
Reading it, I was constantly reminded of what the novel as an
artform is capable of, and what it is for. It might be a bold claim
to make, of the author of Skippy Dies, that this new book is the
best thing Paul Murray has ever done - but I'm making it anyway,
because it's true
*Mark O'Connell, author of 'To Be A Machine'*
The idea of being swept up and spat out by falsehoods runs through
much of Murray's work . . . There are storylines about doomsday
preppers and local GAA teams; themes of class, economic collapse,
ecological catastrophe . . . Murray's conversations have an
expansive tendency. A single thread can lead him outwards in a web
of connections, metaphors, jokes, before he lands smoothly back on
the point
*Irish Times (Niamh Donnelly)*
One of the finest — and funniest — novels of 2023, this
Booker-shortlisted tale of a troubled Irish family takes their
financial, sexual and existential struggles and turns them into
riotous comedy
*The Times, 'Best Novels of 2023'*
Murray gives us a capacious story of one Irish family that is
entertaining, heartbreaking and surprising - few of the characters
turn out to be exactly who you thought they'd be
*iNews (Gwendolyn Smith)*
I'm looking forward to Paul Murray's new family saga, The Bee
Sting; he's such a sharp and funny writer
*David Nicholls*
Paul Murray is my favourite young Irish novelist and The Bee Sting
confirms all of his talents. Settle in for a hilarious whirlwind of
a familial socioeconomic misadventure as only Murray would write
it
*Gary Shteyngart, author of 'Super Sad True Love Story'*
Every sentence in Paul Murray's brilliant family drama The Bee
Sting crackles with wit and ingenuity
*iNews (Michael Delgado)*
A coruscating return for a novelist who's been keeping us waiting
for something special since 2010's Skippy Dies . . . a tragicomedy
that never stints on great jokes - even at its saddest
*The Daily Telegraph*
The Bee Sting is far and away the most entertaining of the novels
on this year’s Booker shortlist, a fat slab of joyous readability –
but which doesn’t stint on emotional depth
*Independent*
Paul Murray was robbed when it came to the Booker this year: his
saga about a family scrambling for survival in recession blasted
Ireland in 2008 is one of the novels of the year. Told from the
perspective of four members of the Barnes family, and unspooling
back in time to reveal a host of buried sentences, this
effortlessly enjoyable novel overflows with human detail
*Daily Mail. 'Best Christmas Gift Books'*
One of the best novels of the year . . . a compelling,
thought-provoking tragic-comic family drama, told in multiple
voices, and set in Ireland. The characters, of all ages, are
memorable and convincing, the plot is a cracker and it will keep
you gripped, amused and provoked throughout 656 brilliant pages
*Independent, ‘Best Books of 2023’*
This propulsive, humane, thrillingly unpredictable story of a
family in free-fall was robbed at this year’s Booker . . . bold,
original . . . Murray gives a totally fresh perspective on subjects
from abuse to money, sexuality, love, climate disaster and
violence, while conjuring characters who leap off the page
*i Paper, 'Best Christmas Gift Books'*
A tour de force of fiction . . . Murray expertly gives us each
family member’s perspective of the same events – with flashbacks
unravelling an intricate story of betrayal, crime and lust.
Profound on the human condition, utterly gripping and peppered with
comedy, your giftee will love it just as much as our reviewer
did
*Independent, 'Best Christmas Gift Books'*
[A] wonderful saga . . . [The Bee Sting] brilliantly explores how
our self-deceptions ultimately catch up with us, and is at once
hilarious and heartbreaking
*Booker Prize Judges*
A first-class piece of immersive fiction – sharp-witted and
clear-eyed but big-hearted – that doesn’t feel as if it’s in
retreat from reality
*The Telegraph*
I’m going to climb on the log-rolling bandwagon by recommending
Paul Murrays achingly tragicomic The Bee Sting. Few, if any, Irish
writers have ever succeeded in sketching contemporary midlands
Ireland in such queasy yet humane detail. Himself a Dub, Murray
brings a rare outsiders eye to an unfashionable and overlooked
milieu
*Irish Times, ‘Best Books of 2023’*
Triumphant . . . the best sort of holiday reading: engrossingly
long, incredibly funny, impossibly sad
*Irish Times, ‘Best Books of 2023’*
[The Bee Sting] has been a revelation: I loved every second of
reading this. I found myself reaching for it on tubes and buses,
stealing five minutes to read it as I waited for a coffee, staying
up late to read in bed, despite my near-religious sleeping
schedule. It has been a pleasure to read, and to say that it’s
changed my outlook on reading, my choices, and tastes, would be an
understatement. The Bee Sting has allowed me to re-evaluate my
prior notions, and to get out of my own way for discovering new
fiction
*RTÉ*
I’m a sucker for a tragicomic family saga [and] Paul Murray has
produced a masterpiece of the form. The Bee Sting is a mosaic-like
account of one family’s misery when their car business hits the
skids in post-crash Ireland . . . It’s an engrossing (and
hilarious) story of blackmail and betrayal, thwarted romance and
freak accidents
*The Sunday Times, 'Best Books of 2023'*
Funny, lyrical and heartbreaking, Paul Murray's Booker nominated
family saga is perfect Betwixmas reading
*The Standard, 'Best Christmas Gift Books'*
At over 600 pages, The Bee Sting may not appear the friendliest
looking of reads . . . but don’t let the length put you off – this
book earns every page . . . A tragicomedy, this novel is expansive
in reach and has a climax that will stay with you long after the
final page
*City A.M., 'Best Books of 2023'*
This is probably the most conventionally satisfying novel of 2023 .
. . It is so engrossing that you will always want to be reading it
and after you have finished it the characters stay with you. Murray
is ostensibly a comic novelist, but he’s dealing in laughter in the
dark by the end of this novel, which tackles economic uncertainty,
climate crisis and the secrets that can define a family without
some of its members realising
*i Paper, 'Best Books of 2023'*
Paul Murray is a confident, stylish writer: he convincingly evokes
a teenage girl’s rage, a boy’s fear, a father’s secrets and a
mother’s disappointments and grief
*The Economist, 'Best Books of 2023'*
Funny and painful with ghosts from the past and spectres from the
future
*Observer*
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