by Paul Murray
Rating: 4.00 (1 ratings)
First published 2023
Dickie Barnes watches his car dealership collapse while he retreats to the woods, constructing a survival bunker with a questionable handyman. His wife Imelda pawns her jewelry online and fends off advances from Big Mike, a smooth-talking cattle farmer. Their teenage daughter Cass abandons her academic success for alcohol as final exams approach. Twelve-year-old PJ contemplates escape from the family chaos. The novel traces backward through pivotal moments: the bee sting that disrupted Imelda's wedding, a fatal car accident before Cass's birth, and a childhood scene where young Dickie learned harsh lessons about masculinity from his father. Murray weaves these threads into a story about one Irish family's struggle against economic collapse and personal dissolution, exploring how past traumas echo through generations and asking whether redemption remains possible when everything falls apart.
Genres: literary-fiction, contemporary, social-issues, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-drama, redemption
Setting: Ireland
Period: 21st-century
736 pages · Kindle Edition · Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Content warnings: depression, mental-illness