Skippy dies

Daniel "Skippy" Juster is 14 years old. He's a student at the oldest, and according to some most prestigious, private school in Dublin. And suddenly he keels over and dies in the local donut shop.

Oh, this is a comedy. Sort of.

Then the story rewinds a few months, introduces us to everyone and lets it proceed to the ending we think we already know; Skippy's schoolmates and -enemies, the girls at the girl's school opposite, the teachers, the parents... it's a fantastic gallery of characters Murray introduces us to, where both kids and adults all think they're the hero of the story and act accordingly. Story, yeah. Murray wants to tackle a lot of different issues in this; through his characters, he flirts with science fiction, horror, social realism, religion, etc, all set to a soundtrack of old hymns and tween pop. The story comes to involve teenage pregnancy, drug use, sexual abuse (it's a catholic school, after all, and everyone reads the papers), cultural confusion, generation gaps, marriage and divorce, war and unemployment, and did I mention that the book begins with a 14-year-old boy dying?

(It's still a comedy. Kind of.)

‘What did you expect?’
Howard ponders this. ‘I suppose – this sounds stupid, but I suppose I thought there’d be more of a narrative arc.’ Seeing Farley’s blank look, he elaborates: ‘A direction. A point. A sense that it’s not just a bunch of days piling up on top of each other.

How can I put it... remember when Stephen King tried to be a Real Writer? This is the novel he never knew he dreamed of writing even if he could have. A suspenseful, hilarious, heartbreaking novel, with dozens of different ideas and storylines that actually work and complement each other. Skippy Dies bloats and sprawls over 660 pages, but whether the topic is 14-year-olds geniuses trying to build wormhole generators in their dorm room, a 30-something teacher questioning where his life is going, or ancient Celtic fairy myths, Murray has a reason for every storyline, they all intertwine and complement each other, and he writes it so beautifully - often in a drily humorous but always compassionate tone, occasionally drifting into a delirious, longing tight point of view that becomes even more touching when you close the book and look at the title. Everyone starts out so very sure they know which story they're the hero of, and then it all starts to unravel until they've all had to take a hard look at each other and discovered what story they're really in. It's all so deliciously complicated and so ridiculously simple, all at once.

That the world, in short, is teenaged. It’s quite a frightening admission to have to make. It feels like a capitulation into anarchy, frankly.

Oh, and Skippy dies. That bit's not meant to be funny. But somehow I come away from the novel with a huge smile on my face.