<b>It can't be overstated how purely pleasurable <i>The Bee Sting</i> is to read</b>. <b>Murray's brilliant new novel, about a rural Irish clan, posits the author as Dublin's answer to Jonathan Franzen . . . A 650-page slab of compulsive high-grade entertainment, <i>The Bee Sting</i> oozes pathos while being very funny to boot . . .</b> Murray's observational gifts and A-game phrase-making render almost every page - every line, it sometimes seems - abuzz with fresh and funny insights . . . At its core this is a novel concerned with the ties that bind, secrets and lies, love and loss. They're all here, brought to life with captivating vigour in a first-class performance to cherish
Observer (Anthony Cummins)
<b><i>The Bee Sting</i> is the finest novel that Murray has yet written</b> <b>and will surely be</b> <b>one of the books of 2023</b> . . . It bears comparison to the brilliant comic writer Jonathan Coe... But Murray is his own writer, capable of keeping a multi-faceted and compulsive plot moving along with alacrity and confidence, while seamlessly blending drama, comedy and heartbreak... <b>For 13 years, Paul Murray has been best known as the author of <i>Skippy Dies</i>. That, I suspect, is about to change</b>
Sunday Independent
<b>Immersive, brilliantly structured, beautifully written,</b> <b>so dense yet so compelling, [and] as laugh-out-loud funny as it is deeply disturbing</b> . . . <i>The Bee Sting</i> is as ambitious as anything that has gone before, but with a focus and shape that grants it great depth as well as breadth. Seriously, all you need is this, your suntan lotion and a few days off work and you're good to go . . . I didn't see the plot twists coming. And they keep on coming, And coming again . . . <b>I began with an ovation. I'll end abruptly, and in awe</b>... <b>Paul Murray, the undisputed reigning champion of epic Irish tragicomedy, has done it again </b>
The Spectator (Ian Samson)
<b>The most enjoyable new novel I came across this year. </b>A sprawling, Franzen-esque saga about the Barnes family in Ireland recovering from the 2008 financial crisis, <b>it’s an amazing piece of realist fiction, full-bodied, multi-narrative; a huge swing by Murray</b>
- Bret Easton Ellis, Observer
<b>A triumph.</b> <b><i>The Bee Sting </i>deserves all the praise I am heaping on it. It is generous, immersive, sharp-witted and devastating; the sort of novel that becomes a friend for life</b>
Financial Times (John Self)
<b>Expertly foreshadowed and so intricately put together, a brilliantly funny, deeply sad portrait of an Irish family in crisis . . . </b>Murray is triumphantly back on home turf - troubled adolescents, regretful adults, secrets signposted and exquisitely revealed, each line soaked in irony ranging from the gentle to the savage . . . We live though hundreds of pages on tenterhooks, and the suspense and revelations keep coming until the end [...] He is brilliant on fathers and sons, sibling rivalry, grief, self-sabotage and self-denial, as well as the terrible weakness humans have for magical thinking... <b>A tragicomic triumph,</b> <b>you won't read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year</b>
Guardian (Justine Jordan)
<b>This bumper novel is already gaining plaudits as the</b> <b>book of the summer</b>, and if it's a meaty, heart punching, expertly executed family saga you need this August, then you can stop the search now . . . Murray delivers scarcely a duff sentence in a 600-page novel that's <b>pure unadulterated pleasure</b>. <b>It's been compared to Jonathan Franzen's <i>The Corrections</i>; I'd argue it's better than that</b>
Daily Mail (Claire Allfree)
<b>No one writes tragicomedy as good as this . . . Both brilliant entertainment and a penetrating look at the human condition, as heavy with pathos as it is rich with humour. And if 650 pages asks a lot of the reader, in this case it more than delivers </b>
- Nick Duerden, iNews
<b>Delightfully rackety, raucously funny... <i>The Bee Sting</i> is on a par with <i>Skippy Dies,</i> Murray's most beloved book, and certainly exceeds it in ambition. A masterpiece</b>
Irish Independent
<b>Murray is a natural storyteller who knows when to withhold, to indulge, to surprise. </b>He specialises, like Dickens, in lengthy sagas that are mammoth in scope, generous with detail and backstory, flush with humour and colourful characters, all of it steeped in social realism . . . <b>Ambitious, expansive, hugely entertaining tragicomic fiction</b>
Irish Times (Sarah Gilmartin)