‘I’ve heard some strange theories’: Paul Murray on The Bee Sting’s climax

The Irish writer, 49, is the author of four novels, the second of which, Skippy Dies, was longlisted for the Booker Prize in 2010. His latest, The Bee Sting, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023.

“If you’ve been trained to think that this life is a kind of secondary thing before the main event, it’s hard to shake off.”Credit: Getty Images

RELIGION

Is it a redundant exercise asking an Irish person what religion they were raised in?
[Laughs] It really is.

What were the rhythms of church and faith like, growing up as an Irish Catholic?
You were dragged to Mass every Sunday, quite a tedious expedition. You’d put on reasonably good clothes, sit there quietly and listen to these kind of incomprehensible prayers. At school, we’d spend our pocket money buying pictures of the Virgin Mary. But when I was about 16, I told my parents I was going to church, but I’d just go and walk in the park, smoke cigarettes and listen to music. That was a lot more uplifting.

As a storyteller, though, are you grateful for Catholicism giving you all those foundational stories? The gift of the Catholic Church in Ireland, and the school that I went to, was to take stories from the Bible and make them as dull as possible. But a lot of it is quite gothic, and the idea of a virgin birth is just bizarre. The strongest effect it had on me was the concept of the Devil. I was terrified of the Devil. That probably shaped the stories I would tell. The terrifying stuff is very rich.

What are your commandments for good writing?
Regularity. Show up every day. Do it even when you don’t feel like it. Also, read as widely as you can; keep learning. The big one? Listen to people. If you can teach yourself to be a good listener, the stories will come to you.

What’s your version of a sacred text?
Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon.

Reading-wise, do you have a favourite guilty pleasure?
TV is my guilty pleasure. I never feel guilty reading.

BODIES

Is writing good for your health?
It’s good for my mental health. The goal of it, for me, is to break out of my own little narrow corner and try to see the world a bit more broadly. It’s also a way to connect with things you’ve shut off inside yourself, or things you worry about, and to engage with them in some way that gives you a grip on them. That’s quite an empowering thing to do. But it’s also quite difficult, because writing is difficult. The discipline you need to sit at your desk takes a lot out of you.

You’re approaching the milestone of turning 50. How are you feeling? How’s your body holding up? [Laughs] The body’s fine! I’ve been blessed with reasonably good genes. Nothing’s gone and nothing terrible has happened yet. But I’ve suddenly noticed – just in the past couple of months – that the print on my medicine or bag of rice is too small, and the varifocals are going to be called on pretty soon. But I feel sort of incredulous about 50. My friends are turning 50 now, and there are parties and things, and it just seems like, “What?!” In our heads, we feel 35 or so. Not super young, but also definitely not 50. It’s just weird.

What’s your superpower?
Physically and mentally, there’s just a doggedness. There’s a resilience or masochistic spirit that enables me to just keep going. I run and cycle quite a lot and there’s a point where you go, “Why am I doing this? There’s no joy in this whatsoever.” Yet I’m able to make myself keep going. Which is good if you’re writing a book because it goes on for years, and you’ve got to stay at it. There’s some sort of Catholic element to that, too. “This is all you deserve! This is what life is supposed to be like!” It’s punishment.

DEATH

Spoiler alert: someone dies in The Bee Sting. Readers don’t know for sure who. Do you?
There’s a bit of debate about what happens exactly, and I’ve heard some strange theories I wouldn’t necessarily have thought of as possibilities. People can just make up their own minds. It’s up to the reader to figure it out. But I’ve got a pretty strong idea of what happens.

Catholicism taught you about the afterlife: heaven, purgatory and hell. What do you now think happens after we die? I’d love to think there was an afterlife, but I just don’t find myself thinking that, which is really sad, in some ways. I don’t know if it’s hard for everybody to live in the here and now, or if it’s especially hard for Catholics. But if you’ve been trained to think this life is a kind of secondary thing before the main event, it’s hard to shake off. So I’ve shaken off the hope that there’s an afterlife, but it’s hard to enjoy the richness of life. That’s not something I feel I’m particularly good at. But with my dad recently dying, and also being on the cusp of 50, those lines are pretty sharply drawn. When you’re 49, you know what a decade feels like. The years go very fast. You know what it looks like to be old, having watched your parents get old. And you realise there’s a window where you’re going to be able to do things and that window is closing.

You’re a writer. What do you want to have written on your headstone?
[Laughs] I haven’t given it that much thought …

But if you leave it to someone else, anything could end up on there!
Even people with the best of intentions will be like, “Oh, Paul would’ve wanted this very special prayer.” You can’t trust people with that stuff!

And unlike you, they’re probably not writers.
Exactly! But I’m not sure if I’d even want a headstone. I’d like a tree. If someone planted a tree and buried the ashes under it, the tree could do the talking. The tree would speak more eloquently than anything I’d come up with.

Paul Murray appears at the Sydney Writers’ Festival (May 8) and Melbourne Writers Festival (May 10-12).

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