Skippy Dies

"Extravagantly entertaining . . . One of the great pleasures of this novel is how confidently [Paul Murray] addresses such disparate topics as quantum physics, video games, early-20th-century mysticism, celebrity infatuation, drug dealing, Irish folklore and pornography . . . Six hundred sixty-one pages may seem like a lot to devote to a bunch of flatulence-obsessed kids, but that daunting length is part and parcel of the cause to which Skippy Dies, in the end, is most devoted. Teenagers, though they may not always act like it, are human beings, and their sadness and loneliness (and their triumphs, no matter how temporary) are as momentous as any adult's And novels about them—if they're as smart and funny and touching as Skippy Dies—can be just as long as they like."—Dan Kois, The New York Times Book Review

"Dazzling . . . If killing your protagonist with more than 600 pages to go sounds audacious, it's nothing compared with the literary feats Murray pulls off in this hilarious, moving and wise book . . . It's the Moby Dick of Irish prep schools . . . Murray is an expansive writer, bouncing around in time, tense and point of view. He's unafraid to tempt sentimentality, to write directly at his deep themes, to employ shameless cliffhangers. And he's talented enough to get away with most of it . . . The mixture of tones is the book's true triumph, oscillating the banal with the sublime, the silly with the terrifying, the sweet with the tragic. In short, it's like childhood. In shorter, like life . . . Murray makes the right choices, refusing to spare kid and kidult alike the gorgeous harshness of the world, filled as it is with ‘a sadness everyone can recognize, a sadness that is binding and homelike."—Jess Walter, The Washington Post Book World

"He really does die. It's in the opening scene. But as Paul Murray's novel backtracks to explain what brought about his death, Skippy is so desperately, painfully alive that you hope the mere act of reading about him will save him . . . Murray balances . . . forces in finely tuned chords of pathos and comedy, a virtuosic display you'd expect from a writer with the confidence to kill of his title character in the title."—Radhika Jones, Time magazine

"[Murray] gets away with almost everything, owing to the strength of his remarkable dialogue, which captures the free-associative, sex-obsessed energy of teen-age conversation in all its coarse, riffing brilliance."—The New Yorker

"Funny, tragic, thoroughly captivating . . . one of the most enjoyable books of the year."—Michael Berry, The San Francisco Chronicle

"Deeply funny, deeply weird and unlike anything you've ever encountered before."—Michael Schaub, NPR.org

"The novel is a triumph . . . Brimful of wit, narrative energy and a real poetry and vision."—Adam Lively, The Sunday Times (UK)

"One of the most enjoyable, funny and moving reads of this young new year."—Patrick Ness, The Guardian

"Noisy, hilarious, tragic, and endlessly inventive . . . Murray's writing is just plain brilliant."—Kate Saunders, The Times (London)

"A blast of a book."—Kevin Power, The Irish Times

"Darkly funny and wholly enjoyable . . . Murray will never once lose your attention, writing with wit and charm and making this tragicomedy both hilarious and effortlessly moving."—The Observer's Very Short List

"A total knockout."—Yvonne Zipp, The Christian Science Monitor

"A refreshing break from the simple, bloglike prose of more popular novels . . . A most entertaining book from an excellent writer."—Dallas Morning News

"A great, early fall read . . . Bursting with plot and characters."—San Antonio Express-News

"Murray's humor and inventiveness never flag. And despite a serious theme—what happens to boys and men when they realize the world isn't the sparkly planetarium they had hoped for—Skippy Dies leaves you feeling hopeful and hungry for life. Just not for doughnuts."—Entertainment Weekly

"Hilarious, heartbreaking . . . endearing, moving, provocative and evocative . . . A combination of knockabout, laugh-out-loud humour combines with an observational poetry that's all about celebrating the ordinary. A real joy."—Eithne Farry, Marie Claire (UK)

"This epic page-turner sweeps you along with the heedless gusto of youth."—Kyle smith, People magazine

"An utterly engrossing read."—Elle

"When I tell you there's a scene towards the end of Paul Murray's Skippy Dies, where I was struggling to maintain my composure while reading on the New York subway, I hope you'll understand just how powerful this novel is. And the fantastic thing is: Just a few hundred pages earlier, I was fighting off a major case of the giggles on an airplane because there's another scene in this book that is hysterically funny, that takes its joke and just keeps turning the dial a little bit further until . . . well, until I was about to explode anyway."—Ron Hogan, Beatrice.com

"A triumph."—Leigh Newman, Bookforum online