The Bee Sting

The novel tells of the Barnes family, a once powerful and wealthy family in Ireland who are now facing financial difficulties after the 2008 global financial crisis. The patriarch of the family, Dickie Barnes, operates a chain of car dealerships and garages that he inherited from his father. But Dickie is having difficulties selling cars due to conscientious reservations related to the climate crisis that he became aware of after speaking to his daughter. Dickie is also dealing with a blackmailer who knows a secret about him dating back to his days at Trinity College. To deal with his mounting troubles, Dicky is building a doomsday bunker in the woods with his handyman Victor. Dickie's wife Imelda's (who's story is told in a stream of consciousness format with the absence of any punctuation) is reluctantly selling the family's possessions online to try to ease their financial burdens. Imelda grew up with an abusive father and eventually met the love of her life, her high school sweetheart Frank (who is Dickie's brother). Frank later died and when she married Dickie she was stung by a bee on her wedding day. She interpreted this as a possible bad omen.

The daughter of the family Cassie, is preparing for university at Trinity College and is eager to escape the small town in which she lives. Cassie has a toxic friendship with Elaine, a friendship with mutual mistrust that eventually boils over when the two are roommates at Trinity College. The son in the family, 12 year old PJ, is dealing with adolescent angst, he fears his parents are getting a divorce. He interacts with a gamer he met online via text message and plans to run away from home and live with him. He deals with a bully who is upset because he believes his mother was ripped off by the family's business. He spends much of his time in the woods, with his friend Nev, to escape the atmosphere home.

Literary review aggregator Book Marks characterized most reviews of the novel as "Rave" reviews.[3]

Writing for The Guardian, Justine Jordan stated that: "This is a sprawling, capacious novel, but expertly foreshadowed and so intricately put together that many throwaway moments only take on resonance on a second reading." And she concluded by stating that: "You won't read a sadder, truer, funnier novel this year."[4] Writing for The New York Times, Jen Doll stated that Murrays writing is "pure joy - propulsive, insightful and seeding with hilarious observations."[5] Writing for The Los Angeles Times, author Jonathan Russell Clark called the novel "a triumph of realist fiction, a big, sprawling social novel in the vein of Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom.” Further stating: "The agility with which Murray structures the narrative around the family at its heart is virtuosic and sure-footed, evidence of a writer at the height of his power deftly shifting perspectives, style and syntax to maximize emotional impact. Hilarious and sardonic, heartbreaking and beautiful — there’s just no other way to put it: “The Bee Sting” is a masterpiece."[6]