The Bee Sting

This isn't funny like Paul Murrays's previous books, but it's not supposed to be, as far as I can tell anyway. It's a big state of the nation book, reflecting contemporary Ireland, city and small town, through the lens of one family. Murray has a fantastic knack of getting in people's heads, and the different narrative voices here are all superbly done. It's a terrific book, right up until the last page, where events have been building and coming together in an excellently orchestrated set piece...and then it just stops, literally seconds before a resolution. I can see that there's a literary point to be made by doing so, but from a storytelling perspective it is unbelievably annoying. If I'd been reading a physical copy it'd have been yeeted across the room.