Hamish Hamilton The Bee Sting: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023

The Bee Sting is a work of tragicomic fiction from the author of Skippy Dies. It follows the Barnes family as they struggle to hold things together while their world begins to unravel. The novel was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023 and the Writers’ Prize for Fiction 2024, and it won the Nero Book Award for Fiction 2023 and An Post Irish Book of the Year 2023.

The family’s difficulties play out across everyday crises and private escape plans. Dickie’s once-lucrative car business is failing, yet he avoids confronting it by spending his time in the woods building an apocalypse-proof bunker with a renegade handyman. Imelda sells her jewellery on eBay, their teenage daughter Cass binge-drinks as her final exams approach, and twelve-year-old PJ prepares to run away from home.

Key details

• Title: The Bee Sting
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2023
• Shortlisted for the Writers’ Prize for Fiction 2024
• Winner of the Nero Book Award for Fiction 2023
• Winner of An Post Irish Book of the Year 2023

Synopsis

The Barnes family is in trouble, with each member responding differently as their circumstances worsen. Dickie retreats into building a bunker as his car business collapses, while Imelda sells her jewellery online. Cass, once top of her class, binge-drinks her way towards her final exams, and PJ, aged twelve, works on a plan to leave home.

As the family searches for where it all went wrong, the story asks whether a single moment of bad luck can redirect a life, and whether there is still time to find a happy ending.