The Bee Sting

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SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2023, INTRODUCE THEM TO ONE OF THE MOST COVETED PIECES OF FICTION OF 2023 THIS CHRISTMAS!

From one of our greatest comic novelists and the author of Skippy Dies comes a funny, thought-provoking story of one family desperately clinging on as their world falls apart . . .

‘A tragicomic triumph. You won’t read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year’ Guardian

‘The finest novel that Murray has yet written … will surely be one of the books of 2023’ Sunday Independent

‘Murray is a natural storyteller … Ambitious, expansive, hugely entertaining tragicomic fiction’ Irish Times

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 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 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?

‘It’s a thing of beauty, a novel that will fill your heart’ Observer.

˜Generous, immersive, sharp-witted and devastating … a triumph’ Financial Times

‘It’s been compared to Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections; I’d argue it’s better’ Daily Mail