The bee sting
£9.99
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 12-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 – 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?
THE MULTI AWARD-WINNING NOVEL FROM ONE OF OUR GREATEST LIVING COMEDIC WRITERS
‘A tragicomic triumph. You won’t read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year’ Guardian
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The Barnes family are in trouble.
Until recently they ran the biggest business in town, now they’re teetering on the brink of bankruptcy – and that’s just the start of their problems. Dickie and Imelda’s marriage is hanging by a thread; straight-A student Cass is careening off the rails; PJ is hopelessly in debt to the school bully.
Meanwhile the ghosts of old mistakes are rising out of the past to meet them, but everyone’s too wrapped up in the present to see the danger looming . . .
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‘Generous, immersive, sharp-witted and devastating; the sort of novel that becomes a friend for life’ Financial Times
‘Paul Murray [is] the undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish tragicomedy’ Spectator
‘An instant classic’ Washington Post
‘[An] astute, remorselessly funny novel’ Daily Mirror
‘A wagyu steak of a novel . . . A classic in the mode of The Corrections’ The Times
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WINNER OF THE NERO BOOK AWARD FOR FICTION 2023
WINNER OF THE SKY ARTS AWARD FOR LITERATURE 2024
WINNER OF AN POST IRISH BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023
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