Family floats on

The fascinatingly macabre details of an Irish nuclear family’s struggles after a stretch of bad luck is rich fodder for Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting.

The drama centres on Dickie Barnes, whose 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.

The rest of his family isn’t faring much better—his wife, Imelda, is hocking her jewellery and having illicit affairs, while his children, Cass and PJ, have turned to running away from home as their solutions to their general misfortune.

With dark humour and unflinching honesty, Paul paints an arresting portrait of a family that can’t catch a break but won’t go down without a fight.

The Bee Sting has been longlisted for the 2023 Booker Prize, and is now available on Amazon.