The Bee Sting - Paul Murray
Beside you as jj tells Junior Freshman Introduction to the Novel about complicity Elaine is on her MacBook updating her Instagram
This book goes to a place that I think is impossible to predict. What starts as a quiet, meditative, generational slice-of-life story ends as a taut, tense thriller. The final words leave us with the knowledge that somebody is about to die and that, just as jj taught their students, the reader is entirely complicit in deciding who that might be.
This is one of the best-written books I've read in a long time. Murray has absolute mastery of the language he uses. Every point of view character feels entirely distinct, and you feel like their story is the single most important part of the book for the entirety of each of their chapters. The second person sections towards the end of the novel are a masterclass in crafting fiction. Second person can often feel irritating or gimmicky but The Bee Sting wouldn't work half as well without it.
Very happy I started my year with this.