Not since Hanya Yanagihara's A Little Life has an author tormented characters in a doorstop of a novel as entertaining as Paul Murray's breakneck page-turner The Bee Sting. In present-day Ireland, Dickie Barnes runs his town's Volkswagen dealership, but sales have faltered, and catalytic converters have been mysteriously disappearing from customers' vehicles. Dickie's wife, Imelda, worries that these troubles might cramp her profligate style. Money wouldn't be her first loss in life: she was originally slated to marry Dickie's younger brother, Frank, but he died young. She married Dickie instead, but on their wedding day, a bee got stuck in her veil and stung her in the eye.
Think that's bad? It's mild compared to other punishments Murray (The Mark and the Void; Skippy Dies) metes out over 600 pages. No one is spared--not Imelda and Dickie's teenage daughter, Cass, eager to live where "everyone doesn't look like they were made out of mashed potato"; nor 12-year-old son, PJ, who likes to practice telepathy; nor Big Mike, the cattle farmer for whom Imelda develops feelings. This novel is more of a family saga than Murray's previous efforts, but his humor is still very much in evidence. It addresses everything: sexuality, climate change, secrets and resentments, capitalism vs. idealism, and more. As one character puts it, "either we make a serious change to the way we live, or we destroy ourselves." He is talking about climate change, but the same sentiment applies to many situations in this endlessly inventive work. --Michael Magras, freelance book reviewer