The Bee Sting by Paul Murray

This is a singularly amazing book that depicts a middle class family on the precipice of a massive catastrophe that slowly but surely unfolds. That underlying anxiety both propels this story forward while simultaneously looping back into the family's past. Everything that happens feels both spontaneous to the moment and yet determined by a web of tragedies and deceptions that stretches back for decades. Every incident that seems to stand alone then unspools to greater complexity — not like a mystery being solved but like a labyrinth being constructed. We see all of us in the characters within: Dickie, who was set up well in life by his parents, finds that his mediocre skills as a car salesman that served him well in good times are not what it takes when times get tough and he is slowly slipping into bankruptcy. His wife Imelda is panicked by this and starts to behave quite erratically as she fears she will once again be living in poverty. Their daughter Cass is about to leave home and struggles with who she is, who she wants to be, and where she fits, all of that not going particularly well and their son PJ, who is being groomed by an internet predator. It all comes to a head at the end, but with this book it is the journey that is so astounding. It has been long listed for the 2023 Booker Prize, and deservedly so.