Fiction – paperback; Hamish Hamilton; 645 pages; 2023.
We are only two weeks into January and I think I have already found my favourite book of the year!
Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting is a spellbinding tragicomic tale that explores the emotional and financial outfall of the 2008 economic crash on one well-to-do Irish family.
It comes in at a stonking 645 pages of small print text, but the story is so perfectly structured and paced that it didn’t feel at all baggy or over-written.
Even the significance of the title is pitch-perfect. It not only refers to an actual bee sting that happens in the book, but when you say it out loud, several times in quick succession, it becomes “beasting”, a term that has multiple meanings but generally implies harsh treatment.
A family in crisis
The story is told in the third person through the eyes of four members of the comfortably well-off Barnes family:
- Cass, the teenage daughter, who is in her last year of secondary school and destined to study literature at Trinity University
- PJ, her younger brother, who is obsessed with video games
- Imelda, the mother, who is renowned for her beauty and loves to shop
- Dickie, who runs a lucrative Volkswagen dealership originally set up by his own father (now retired and living in Portugal) which is now likely to go under.
Each character’s voice is distinctive and their individual reactions to the family’s change in circumstances are expertly fleshed out in hefty but compulsively readable sections. Their backstories are explored in such a vivid and deeply compassionate way that each character feels flesh-and-blood real.
As the focus moves from character to character, following their missteps and bad decision-making along the way, we gain a more rounded perspective of the family and come to understand why each person is the way they are.
Subsidiary storylines
Threaded throughout the overarching narrative are additional story strands involving subsidiary characters, including a charming but dangerous Polish man who befriends Cass and ends up being hired at her father’s garage; Victor, a conspiracy theorist handyman, who helps Dickie convert a stone cabin in the woods into an apocalypse-proof bunker; Mike, a local businessman and womaniser, who sets his sights on bedding Imelda; and Rose, Imelda’s aunt who has “second sight” but refuses to tell a teenage Imelda her future — probably because she knows it’s not a happy one.
Murray also seamlessly weaves in a catalogue of contemporary issues including climate change, online risks for minors, sexual assault, blackmail, identity politics, childhood poverty, materialism and consumerism, binge drinking and alcoholism, and gangster-related crime.
The result is a hugely ambitious and immersive novel, one that comes right out of the Jonathan Franzen school of storytelling.
A grand finale
I’m conscious that I haven’t gone into any great detail about the plot or what happens to individual characters, first, because it’s beyond my capabilities to do the story justice in a 750-word review, and second, I believe it’s just better if you experience the revelations (of which there are many) without knowing about them first.
Reading The Bee Sting is entertaining, heartbreaking, humourous, shocking and bittersweet, often all at once. The ending, set on a dark and stormy evening, proves to be a fitting (and heart-stopping) grand finale.
If I were to fault it, I would argue that some of the issues feel too contemporary for the year in which the story is set, but that’s a minor quibble. I actually loved this novel — it held me in its sway for two whole weeks and left me feeling bereft when I finished. This has set the bar very high for the rest of the reading year!
The Bee Sting was named the 2023 Irish Book of the Year, and was shortlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize and a slew of other literary prizes.
Reading Matters 
Oh, you do make this sound compelling, I think this is likely to be a future “one summer chunkster” for me.
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It makes a perfect summer read!
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Did you read ‘Skippy Dies’? I’ve always kicked myself for not reading that one.
I thought ‘The Bee Sting’ was excellent, but I kept hoping it would be even more excellent. 🙂
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I haven’t read Skippy Dies but I do have a signed copy having heard Murray do a reading at a Penguin publishers fiction showcase to which I’d been invited. I might have to read it now.
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Oh, it sounds really interesting, but at that length I’m not likely to get to it given my reading commitments.
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That’s a shame. It’s such a fantastic read; I’m sure these characters will stay with me forever.
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Oh well, I guess we can’t sell read every fantastic read… More’s the pity!
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This is true!
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I nearly picked this up after reading Flanagan’s Question 7 (which has set the bar very high for my reading year!) but what with another bout of Covid, I decided for something easier (and regretted it of course).
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This is an easy read. It pulls you right in and is so immersive and compelling you forget you’re actually reading a novel. I was sad when it ended.
Hope you’re now over the worst of the covid and feeling better every day.
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You do make it sound compelling, but 645 pages…
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I don’t tend to read chunksters, but this has been a valuable lesson for me in not ignoring books simply because they have more pages than I would like. The Bee Sting was a terrific read. I’m so impressed by Paul Murray’s talent; even more impressed to discover he wrote the first draft in long hand!
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You’re right, and I’ve mostly found that chunksters can be very good reading. I have more than a few on the TBR!
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I LOVE a chunkster and really enjoyed Skippy Dies. Already have the book ready to go and will move it up my list. Have been looking forward to it since it was released – your review has made me excited. I try not to read reviews of books I know are right up my alley (I’m a big fan of Franzen) but you’ve decided this one is up next! Thank you
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I hope you enjoy it, Kate. Admittedly, I was intrigued by the VW dealership premise because I was a marketing manager for a VW franchise here in Perth for a couple of years and “automotive land” was an eye-opening experience for me! But The Bee Sting is so much more than that.
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This sounds like a book I will really enjoy, thank you Kim. I’ve been uncertain, but your review has put my resolve in place. Happy New Year. Lyn
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It’s such an ambitious novel but he really pulls it off, I think. Hope you can make the time to read it, Lyn.
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I have a newfound fondness for doorstoppers this month — I’m currently reading Wellness by Nathan Hill and Babel by R.F. Kuang, among others — so I’m going to attempt this one soon. Lots of people thought it was a shoo-in for the Booker. It’s currently on the Writers’ Prize and Nero Book Awards shortlists.
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It should have won the Booker, but then I haven’t read the winner so maybe that’s even better than this one (though I doubt it). Thanks for the news about the other shortlists – I didn’t know about that.
I think I might have a newfound fondness for doorstoppers too… I have plenty of unread ones in the stacks so might have to consider digging one out. I have heard good things about Babel…
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Fascinating, I am half way through the Bee Sting, it is our current Book Club book. I will save thoughts on it though till I have finished, which I need to do soon as my partner needs also to read it before the 22nd May, and as you say, it is chunky.
I do recommend reading Profit Song. I chose this for our book club when it made the long list. It is a book that I wouldn’t want to try and describe unless you are talking to people who have read it, but I will say it is breathless – both in the style of writing and the pace. If you read it I would be fascinated by how you would describe it.
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I’m not big on doorstoppers, but you have tempted me. Now to take a deep breath … and dive in. Once I’m back in the UK.
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It’s the perfect book to get lost in. It would also make perfect company on a trip away or just a weekend in front of the fire.
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OK. I’m in – when I get back to the UK.
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I’ve not fancied this one but you’ve made me fancy it!
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Oh it’s so good, Liz, a really absorbing and immersive “big picture” story. Loved it.
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I went shopping for this today but learned that in the UK it’s not out in paperback until May. Interesting that you were able to get this so many months earlier.
I waited three months for my library reservation to come through and now of course it has arrived at the same time as other reservations so I may not get to read it before it’s due back. Hence my shopping trip today. I’ve dipped into it and loved it from the first page – can I really wait until May???
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Books aren’t generally published in hardcover here; they go straight to large format paperback. If they sell well, they’ll be reissued as smaller paperbacks. So that’s why it’s available in paperback here.
Hope you get to read it before it’s due back at the library! It’s a brilliant novel!
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Well I wasn’t expecting to learn that about publishing in Australia. Is that practice driven by cost considerations?
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The theory I’ve been told is that Australian consumers won’t buy them because they’re too expensive and publishers are reluctant to risk having a ton of unsold hardcovers on their hands. They can test the waters so to speak with large format paperbacks and do additional print runs if necessary. Only big name Australian authors (ie Tim Winton and Richard Flanagan) tend to get the hardcover treatment because they’re guaranteed to sell.
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