BookLife Review by Carol O'Day: The Bee Sting (Paul Murray, author)
Ireland, Dublin, small town, family saga, tragedy, young love, rich and poor, closeted gay life, blackmail, child abuse, marriage, mental illness, multiple points of view
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray is a complex read. It is a tragic family story replete with dark subjects—abuse, repression, blackmail, infidelity and economic distress. It is a sad tale of deep disconnection within a family and profound loneliness and unhappiness. The story is told in segments through rotating chapters in the varied points of view to the each of the main characters. As time passes and the family’s life unravels further and further, the author drops punctuation and proceeds in a stream of consciousness, at times only marginally comprehensible as certain characters’ sanity begins to fray. The ending poses more questions than it answers, which can be dissatisfying if you like a tidy conclusion.
That said, it is a masterful book and has appeared on many book award shortlists. Murray deeply invests in the primary ensemble of characters, giving all of them a fairly rich and full back story. He also paces his reveals, making the reader wonder “why” for extended periods of time, before he reveals a small nugget that suddenly clarifies a portion of the action or a tidbit of a character’s motivation, moving the story further in search of the next reveal. The sleights of hand are many and delicious. There is also a gathering gallup of momentum to the story. The reader senses tragedy looming but Murray is able to suspend the reader’s full comprehension about how the carefully laid pieces will connect as the book nears its climax. Murray also masters the payoff. From the start of the book, he plants rich details like breadcrumbs along the trail, and virtually all of them pay off.
Critics may roll eyes at the sudden disappearance of punctuation about mid-book, or the extremes of behavior (central characters behavior borders on unrealistic). Yet, these extremes are indeed suitable signs of the depth of the characters’ pain and despair. They are the stuff of tragedy. Dark it is, but elegantly so. I struggled to attach early on, but persistence pays off here.