"Unbearable What an unbearable thing is a life"

The plot of this can be summed up in one sentence: an Irish family of four struggles through a financial downturn - but it takes 643 pages to really get to know them. This is indeed a deeply immersive read. It was an investment of my time and my emotions. I both loved and hated these characters . . . just like a real family.

That's why the ambiguous ending seemed like such a slap in the face.

Anyway, glad I read it . . . I guess?

This is the story of a family who falls apart in the aftermath of Ireland's 2008 economic crisis. The Barnes's are among the wealthiest families in a small town in the middle of Ireland, owning and running a car dealership there. When the crash comes, it seems for awhile like they can sail through, and then it seems like they might sail through with a little belt-tightening. And then it seems the sailing days are over.

Murry begins this story with Cass, who plans to attend university in Dublin and live with her best friend. When the financial pressures become evident, so does the disparity in the relationship with her best friend. Cut adrift, Cass has trouble concentrating on her exams, and as her normal teenage woes veer into more serious terrain, it's clear her parents aren't paying attention. Then there's PJ, a sweet child, who may spend his time playing truly frightening video games, but that hasn't affected his sensitive heart, which notices his parents's troubles and does his part to not bother them, no matter what. He's found an on-line friend who is supportive which his parents definitely don't notice.

Murray's skill as a writer is in full display as, having killed all sympathy for these negligent parents, he proceeds to tell their stories and to force the reader to care about them. Murray writes each character so well, each has a voice of their own and the mother's section was just fantastic -- written in a stream-of-consciousness that reflects who she is. The book opens with long sections for each of the four family members, then moving between them more rapidly as the novel builds to its conclusion. We've all read books that end pages, or even chapters, later than they should have. This is the first time I've encountered a book that deliberately ended too early. I'm not sure what to think of that.

Always so exciting when a new Paul Murray is coming out. This was a beautiful read, totally deserving of it's Booker Nomination.

What a strange 600+ page book. I suppose, since it's that long, it's naturally for me to have a few different opinions on it and feel like I read 4 different books instead one of one huge one. THE BEE STING was a must-read because I adored Paul Murray's SKIPPY DIES, which I read more than a decade ago and remembered loving. This book is very different though. Set in current day Ireland, it follows a middle class family in the middle of various different crises. We learn more about each family member through different chapter. Some I loved, others were almost unreadable. It's a massive, perfectly uneven book that I'm sure many people will see as a masterpiece. I see it as a novel I'm glad I read but may think twice about picking up Murray's next book.

“The Bee Sting” by Paul Murray– a celebrated Irish author, longlisted for this year’s Booker prize – of course I had to read it! Then, being 656 pages, I had to wonder what I had committed to.

This is a family saga, told from the point of view of four of the household members (at least, initially). The Barnes family is reeling from the economic crash following Ireland’s Celtic Tiger boom. The father, Dickie, runs the family’s car dealership and things are bleak. His wife, Imelda, is introduced as a fashionable beauty who is appalled at her husband’s recent business failures and does not let him forget it. She has resorted to selling off the family’s goods on Ebay. Not only are the finances plummeting– maybe just as importantly– so is their standing in the community. Ever since the days when Dickie’s father, Maurice, succeeded building the business, townsfolk have viewed the family as a bit high and mighty. People are now savoring the fall from grace as the family seems to disintegrate.

The first two sections are told from the children’s viewpoint. We meet Cass, in high school and making her plans to run off to Trinity College in Dublin. Her brother, PJ, is in grade school and is plotting his own runaway escape. While there is great care taken to draw out these characters, the portrayal of the parents, especially the father, seems flat through the children’s eyes.

Once we get to the parents, however, the world starts opening up. Prior to this, the parents seem no more dimensional than a 1950’s television sitcom family. We get the background on Imelda– brought up in a rough childhood and uneducated, she had her heart set on a fairytale future where she was going to be rescued by a Prince Charming. This section of the book is told in a stream-of-consciousness manner, almost completely void of punctuation, in a manner reflecting her lack of education. This might seem annoying at first, but this device effectively relays her moods and emotions.

Up until this point, Dickie scans as a rather bland and ineffectual father figure– boring! His background is quite a bit different than his children are aware of. It seemed he embraced the role of husband, father, and dull businessman while completely abandoning the path his life wanted to run. Daddy has a past. Daddy has secrets.

The characters are wonderful, believable, and easy to sympathize with. As each one tells the story we get details the others are not aware of, much like a “Rashomon.” As the story returns to events we are enlightened– it dawns on us why characters have been acting as they have, in part due to these black holes in the family’s understanding of each other.

There is a fifth section, told in second person. Here we rapidly switch from character to character with Cass now in college, PJ struggling to keep his parents together, Imelda feeling conflicted over an attempted seduction, while Dickie has thrown himself whole-heartedly into converting a family shed into a survivalist / end-of-days shelter for a future catastrophe. A real confrontation builds when a shadowy villain steps forward to force a crucial, life-changing call to action.

Again, a very long book. It moved along quickly for me as the revelations fleshed out the characters and kept my interest. I am conflicted about the final section of the book. I did not like it at first— and I have seen some reviewers openly hostile to the way it was handled. On second reflection, I see what Paul Murray was doing… it was just a little jarring after the careful pinpoint layering upon layering in the bulk of the telling. Still, an excellent read… the character building was brilliant.

Thank you to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and to NetGalley for providing an advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review. #TheBeeSting #NetGalley

I’m not really sure how to feel about this book. While the writing was mostly enjoyable the last third of the book left a lot to be desired. Lots of mistakes in this family, and town for that matter. Sad stories abound. But does the reader have a chance to feel sorry for any of them? Not really.

This was a great sprawling family novel. It’s long. But never feels unnecessary. There were elements I didn’t love, but that was due to personal opinion rather than overall worth.

I received a copy of this novel from the publisher via NetGalley.

I am quitting this at 17% which, given the length of the book, means I gave it a good go! The first section was from the perspective of teenage daughter Cass, who spends her days in thrall to her 'friend' Elaine, hanging out with her boyfriend whom she doesn't even like, and drinking when she should be revising. She is also troubled by the fact that her parents are quarrelling and her dad's business failing. Then the second section is from the perspective of her brother PJ, who spends his days hanging out with the horrible Nev, whom he doesn't really like, and worrying about his parents.

I thought the writing was good, but I find this depressing and I want to tell Cass and her family to stop caring so much about what other people think and become their own people, but I fear they won't do that and I can't cope with the hostility and submission to bullying any more.

Not for me.

I loved this in the beginning. Murray has such a gift with character voice and every character POV felt distinct and unique. The first half felt propulsive but at a certain point lost momentum and the length felt unbearable.

This is a long book and I wasn’t sure if it was going to hold my attention, but I found the 2nd half to be a page-turner and I was rewarded for sticking with it. The book’s billing is a little off. The blurb calls it “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.” I did not find it funny. Awful things happen to the main characters and most of the book is about the struggle to right the ship amid the tumult of everyday life. I guess parts of it could be considered dark comedy, but it didn’t make me laugh.

There are several important characters in this novel and each provides a distinct and interesting voice. At the core is Dickie Barnes, who has inherited his father’s car business, but is having trouble keeping it afloat in a recession. Dickie’s wife, Imelda, struggles with the fact that Dickie is not the love of her life.Their daughter, Cass, is focused on getting out of the family’s influence by going to college in Dublin, where she grapples with identity and her sexuality. And then there is 12-year-old PJ, who gets caught up in his father’s plans to provide shelter for the family in the event of an apocalypse.

There are many themes here. Love, loss, friendship, abuse, sexuality, and climate change are at the forefront. The book is a little on the long side, but it makes good on each of its themes and the end justifies its length. As for the title…the “reveal” of the bee sting theme is one of the most satisfying aspects of the book. It and the ending would make for a fun discussion in book club. Recommended for those who appreciate deep character development and don’t mind a dark outlook.

Is it possible to pinpoint the exact moment when your life took a downward trajectory? Dickie and Imelda Barnes think that all started with their ill-fated wedding, but perhaps it was much earlier than that. The fact of the matter is, that after almost twenty years together, everything for them is looking bleak. Dickie’s car dealership—the very one which made his father a fortune, and whose great sales financed the Barneses’ lavish lifestyle—has been going under for a few years. Imelda blames Dickie, as do the kids, Cass and PJ. Surely, if Maurice (Dickie’s father) came back from his retirement in Portugal, and issued them a sizable loan, Dickie would be able to right the ship… But can he, or does he want to?

The family business may be in trouble but there are plenty of other things going on beneath the surface: 1) Cass - consistently among the top of her class, chooses to let loose in the last year of high school, right before her final exams, following in the footsteps of her best friend, Elaine. She now binge-drinks, and does drugs and sex. 2) PJ - is being bullied nonstop, and his closest friends don’t want anything to do with him due to the change of economic circumstances in his family. Feels neglected and is plotting with an online friend to flee home. 3) Imelda - who comes from a broken background (physical violence and thievery as a way of life for the father and siblings), may be on the verge of having an affair. 4) Dickie - his distant past, and his most recent one, are catching up to him.

These four lives, and those of a few other key players’, will collide on an unforgettable night.

Paul Murray plunged right into the story, with no character dump, which, given the length of the book, was very considerate. The story reflects a seasoned writer at the peak of his game. A novel in two parts, with an all-knowing narrator, The Bee Sting is a slow-burn and intricate character study that starts on a light note, almost as a satire, but it gets increasingly darker in tone as the foundations on which the Barnes family was built (tragedy, lies or half-truths, secrets) start to peel off layer by layer.

Murray mixes grammatical structure and narrative styles, each chapter reflecting each personality and view point— messenger texts (PJ), lack of punctuation (Imelda’s), Cass’s narrative in second person, singular, as is occasionally PJ’s, especially in the second part. Towards the end, each character’s narrative becomes more recurrent, briefer, and lacking previously established patterns, lending a thriller-esque quality to the ending.

Despite being a meticulous character study, The Bee Sting has a can’t-look-away-from-this-mess quality that makes for compelling reading. Coincidences towards the end do not detract from an unforgettable, if not entirely fulfilling, climax.

Thanks to the publisher for granting me access to an advanced digital copy via Netgalley.

Paul Murray's "The Bee Sting" was longlisted for the Booker Prize (writing this in August 2013). I can see what attracted the judges as the book is a sprawling narrative about the Barnes family. Murray tells the story from each family member's point of view, and we're constantly told of the same events through their recollections of these events.

This chunkster of a novel works as a dissection of how Dickie, Imelda, PJ and Cass (and those around them) have come to their present dramas/dilemmas. Since Murray has a great eye for sharp bits of dialogue, the narrative is compelling for the most part. I throughly enjoyed it for half the novel. At a certain point, the novel becomes repetitive because the characters talk endlessly about the same problems, and if there's a chance to make a good decision, they will make the wrong one every time. If this were happening in a shorter novel, it would not be as noticeable. At 700 pages, the constant circling, repetition and bad decisions wore me down.

The narrative was harmed by the very long chapters which felt oppressive (the narrative style also changes based on a chapter's protagonist). If the book had been shorter, my book rating would have been higher. With that said, Murray creates a lot of strong moments (there's a particularly disturbing scene towards the end where a person's true identity is revealed) so that I kept going because these scenes were so good that I wanted more of them.

As a side note: There are moments of sexual violence within the book, so I would warn potential readers who might want to prepare themselves for those scenes.

As the plot of Paul Murray's Bee Sting has been exhaustively recounted by others, I'll refrain and only say that the reason for a mediocre "c" rating on my part has to do with the inordinate length and astounding amount of paper he felt necessary to present this saga. Yes, it's witty, at times involving, and overall intriguing in its situations. But. Over 700 pages?

Nominated for the Booker Prize Longlist, The Bee Sting by Paul Murray is an excellent character-driven novel following a family in Ireland. Each section of the book is a different character's point of view, and each refocuses the narrative. This is a dense book, but well worth it!

Thank you Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Net Galley for providing me with a copy of Paul Murray’s spectacular tragicomedy which was recently long-listed for the Booker Prize. Despite being a sprawling 600 plus pages, this was a novel that kept me thoroughly entertained and completely engrossed with well-drawn characters and a propulsive plot. Bee Sting is the story of a formerly prosperous Irish family who are coping with the after-effects of a financial crash which has crippled the once-lucrative auto showroom and garage that Dickie Barnes had taken over from his father, Maurice, who had retired to Portugal.

Dickie’s wife, Imelda, is a narcissistic beauty who has an “electrifying effect” on people and utter disdain for Dickie who she blames for running the garage into the ground. Their eldest child, Cassandra, is embroiled in a toxic friendship with the manipulative Elaine. Both teens are eager to flee their small town and attend college in Dublin, but Cass, formerly top of her class, wonders how she is going to go to college if the money’s all gone, and begins drinking and partying rather than preparing for her final exams. PJ is a 12 year old who is selling off his video games, a skateboard, a handheld game console and other detritus of an upper-class kid after a school mate threatens to beat him up if he doesn’t reimburse him for some bungled work that was performed at Dickie’s garage. PJ plans to runaway to the home of Ethan, a friend he met on-line, with the naive expectation that his disappearance will stop his parents from fighting, from talking about divorce, and from threatening to send him to boarding school. But, the arrival of Grandpa Maurice leads PJ to hope that he “will give Dad money — Dad will fix whatever is wrong with the garage — Mam will get her proper moisturiser and stop being angry about her complexion — Cass will go to college — PJ will pay off Ears and not get his bones broken and there will be no more talk of divorce or boarding school and everything will be all right again from now on for ever!”

After establishing the primary cast of characters, Murray opens the aperture of the novel wider, and we learn about Imelda’s chaotic childhood, being raised in crushing poverty by a violent father and feckless older brothers, and her first and, perhaps, only love, a charming football player. Imelda’s section, which is structured like a stream-of-conscience phrasing without punctuation, suggests that a single moment of bad luck can alter the direction of a life. Then Murray turns his attention to Dickie, the quiet, unhappy family man who is shirking his responsibilities by working on a secret project in the woods — building an apocalypse-proof bunker. The suspense and revelations keep coming, and it would be irresponsible to reveal them. Murray has written a novel that is wildly entertaining and deeply moving, and told with such deft management of time as he unspools the family’s slow-burning secrets that I cannot imagine any reader not relishing this page-turning pleasure.

656 pages that rarely get hung up or slow down too much, and the tension ratchets up and up, and when I was reading this late at night, I'd have to put it down, and then pick it back up. A family drama, a family soap opera, a generational tale, at times funny in a very dry way, set in post-crash Ireland, in a small rural town and in Dublin, moving back and forward in time as we meet and learn all about an Irish family - Dickie Barnes, who from childhood was slated by his up-from-the-bootstraps father to take over his VW car showrooms, married for 20 years to Imelda, a beauty from a violent and impoverished home, their two children, teenager Cass, angst-ridden, in a toxic best-friendship with Elaine, desperate to be away from home, eager for her college time at Trinity in Dublin, and PJ, a boy with wide-ranging interests, on track to become a bully's delight. Toggling between the lives and perspectives of Dickie, Imelda, Cass and PJ as they deal with various issues - global, weather, climate change, the recession, the failing VW car dealerships, what they want from one another, who Dickie and Imelda were before they were married. The observations, the truths and secrets each character has, about which their family members know nothing, a host of buried secrets, how lives can turn on a dime, on a strange choice made, on a desire to be rid of our prior selves. Vulnerability is at the core here, of ourselves, who we love, the desires within us, our hopes and dreams that get stomped away by the world, by life, by things we do to ourselves. Murray is convincing writing the various generations here - from Maurice, the patriarch who founded the car showrooms, to Dickie, but also to the woman's perspective of Imelda, and those of a teenage girl and a young boy. I did not guess any of the secrets. Reveals that are made turn out to have another level, and the ending, even as I began slowly to understand, still shocked me. This is the first novel by Murray I've read, but I'm now interested to read his others.

Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Netgalley for an ARC.

This is a hard one for me. I liked it overall, but honestly, it's just so, so very long. It's never a good sign when you're reading a book and keep thinking, "why is this so long?" Also, I really disliked the ending. A LOT.

But first all the pluses (and there are a lot of them.) The core story is really beautiful and well-written. The majority of the book is a deep dive with each of the four characters in the family. By the time to you get to the two parent's stories, things start to get interesting (as a child's view of their parents is never accurate or well-developed.) Also, a parent I can say that this author writes children and teens well.

After these four verrrrrry long flashbacks, we start to alternate chapters between the four characters, and then, toward the end, alternate paragraphs between the four when they all come together in one place where something tragic is set up to happen. The structure is pretty lovely. But again, it takes a long time to get to this point where the pacing goes from glacial to speedy.

To be honest, this is a dark book. But, watching these stories unspool is fascinating, (if you're into these characters. If you're not, it'll feel like a total snooze fest) giving you a front row seat into why this family is the way it is, how trauma gets passed down through generations, and how secrets can fester.

I wouldn't say I necessarily loved this book, but I did appreciate it and found it memorable. Thank you to the author and NetGalley for granting me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an honest review.

TRIGGER WARNING: abuse, rape

Thank you so much Hamish Hamilton and NetGalley for letting me read and review The Bee Sting.

I'll start by saying two things:

1. The book took me a while to finish because of it's gigantic size. The time taken had nothing to do with being bored or wanting to quit. I apologise it took me nearly a month.
2. I was loving the book so much, I actually went out and bought a copy and started on page 1 again.

The Bee Sting is a fabulous novel. Following the Barnes family during a tumultuous period in each of their lives, we go on a mammoth of journey, learning how the family are keeping secrets from one another and - simply - trying to survive and remain sane.

I won't give any spoilers. I will say that each character is fascinating and sympathetic and worthy of a novel in their own right. In a way, Murray does (sort of do this). As in give each character their own novel, since storylines develop and often go on for 150 pages or so at a time.

Murray is easily my favourite novelist now. I've bought each of his books and plan on revisiting them. I don't think I finished Mark and the Void for whatever reason, so maybe I'll go back to that one first.

Anyway. The Bee Sting is a fantastic novel. I will give it 4 stars, but in my mind it's really 4.5 - but I can't do half a star. The only thing stopping this book from being a star higher is the length. Some other reviewers stated that it could've been shorter, and I do agree. Sections could've been shortened. But it is what it is. The book was never dull and kept me highly entertained for nearly 650 pages. I will reread this too and hopefully get it signed some day.

I highly recommend The Bee Sting and actively encourage you to buy a comedy, especially if you enjoy family centred comedy-dramas.

Mr Murray, good job. Fair play.

This latest novel from the acclaimed author of Skippy Dies is a LOT. It's a lot of pages, a lot of characters, a lot of writing styles and a lot of Irish angst. Because of all that this novel contains, I think I might enjoy it more in audiobook which might give me some audible clues as to some of the tone and switchbacks here. As it is, I did, ultimately, enjoy this novel, although, I almost quit reading on more than one occasion.

3.5 stars. First things first, Paul Murray's writing is objectively gorgeous. I love the prose and the style, except for the lack of punctuation.

This is a lengthy narrative with multiple POVs and a cacophony of wacky characters and events — certain things worked for me, but others didn't. PJ's chapters were difficult for me to read, as I personally am not a fan of reading from a child's perspective. Cass and Imelda were my favorites! I found the story to be plodding and slow until the plot twist around the halfway mark, so hang in there if you're on the fence at 40%, alright? It does pick up, almost dizzyingly so.

Overall, I'm still not sure how I feel about this read? It's something I'll probably pick up again in the future because of this mixed reaction. I wish it were about half the length, so maybe I'll audiobook the reread!

Thank you to Paul Murray, FSG Books, and NetGalley for my advance digital copy.