The Bee Sting -- Paul Murray, Hardcover

Longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize

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 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 jewelry on eBay, while their teenage daughter Cass, formerly top of her class, seems determined to binge-drink her way through 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 favor to a charming stranger, a bee caught beneath a bridal veil--can a single moment of bad luck change the direction of a life? And if the story has already been written--is there still time to find a happy ending?

Author: Paul Murray
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 08/15/2023
Pages: 656
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.80lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.40w x 1.90d
ISBN: 9780374600303
Award: Man Booker Prize - Nominee

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal Prepub Alert 03/01/2023 pg. 4
Kirkus Reviews 05/15/2023
Booklist 05/15/2023 pg. 16
Publishers Weekly 06/19/2023
Library Journal 07/01/2023 pg. 64

About the Author
Paul Murray was born in 1975 in Dublin. He is the author of several novels, including An Evening of Long Goodbyes, which was short-listed for the Whitbread First Novel Award and the Kerry Group Irish Fiction Award. Skippy Dies (2013) was longlisted for the Booker Prize, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The Mark and the Void (2015) was joint winner of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse prize, and named one of Time's Top 10 Fiction Books of the year.