Bee Sting
June 2024
Bee Sting by Paul Murray
rom one of our greatest comic novelists and the author of Skippy Dies comes a funny, thought-provoking story of one family desperately clinging on as their world falls apart . . .
'A tragicomic triumph. You won't read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year' Guardian
The Barnes family is in trouble. Dickie's once-lucrative car business is going under - but rather than face the music, he's spending his days in the woods, building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman.
His wife Imelda is selling off her jewellery on eBay while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way to her final exams. And twelve-year-old PJ is putting the final touches to his grand plan to run away from home.
Where did it all go wrong? A patch of ice on the tarmac, a casual favour to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil?
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Interviews:
The Art of Reading Bookclub - Irish Fiction Colm Tóibín talks to Paul Murray about his latest novel The Bee Sting