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The very first line of The Bee Sting by Paul Murray says “in the next town over a man has killed his family….” This line alone sets the tone of impending doom that we wait to happen.
At 600 + pages this immense family saga follows the lives of the members of the Barnes family, a rags to riches family whose business has struck hard times after the recession of 2008.
Telling the story from each family member Paul Murray does a great job to form compelling characters each having a different perspective of their own family life, and each harbouring some secrets that we know will bite them at some point.
We have Dickie a seemingly failed businessman, Imelda his beautiful lonely wife, and their children; Cass an angsty teen who blames her parents for everything and PJ a sweet boy with a wonderful curiosity for nature.
The book is packed full of issues that will strike a chord somewhere with any reader; grief, homophobia, self-destruction, self-denial, family secrets and even climate change is used as a metaphor throughout.
The book club, as so many reviewers have been, are somewhat split on whether they enjoyed the book or not. Collectively we thought that the first half of the book was hard to read in places. The chapters were LONG and overly descriptive especially for those of us who are night time readers.
The author omits punctuation for one of the central characters (Imelda) as a way of creating an understanding as to her education and thought processes, we all agreed whilst effective it made for hard reading.
Once each character’s backdrop has been set, the author switches to writing in the second person. The chapters become shorter and shorter, switching from one perspective to the next. This builds the tension, and increases the pace towards the impending doom we were introduced to in the beginning. This change in style made the book a far more enjoyable read.
The climax has all the family ending up in the forest in torrential rain with the hope of reuniting and forging a better future together. But somehow with all those references to life getting just a little better for the Barnes family, we feel this isn’t going to end well!
Despite the ending being left ambiguous, the clues had been there throughout. Aunt Rose warns Cass shouldn’t return, Dickie tells us he is “doing this for love” and the references to poor culled grey squirrels! And like with Tony Soprano, I don’t think there was much doubt……click.
Overall the AJ Book Club enjoyed the book, some loved it, some thought it OK. The literally style of the book will have definitely swayed opinions. The story was very well developed, with some carefully drawn out themes throughout. And although some chapters had far too much detail this could be forgiven with the thought provoking climatic ending.
We’ve given it superb 4 stars.
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