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Skippy Dies
Skippy Dies
Dec 31, 2025 11:01 AM

Author:Paul Murray

Skippy Dies

Paul Murray's Skippy Dies is a tragicomic masterpiece about a Dublin boarding school

LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2010

Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search of Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel 'Skippy' Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. But when Skippy falls for Lori, the frisbee-playing siren from the girls' school next door, suddenly all kinds of people take an interest - including Carl, part-time drug-dealer and official school psychopath. . .

A tragic comedy of epic sweep and dimension, Skippy Dies scours the corners of the human heart and wrings every drop of pathos, humour and hopelessness out of life, love, Robert Graves, mermaids, M-theory, and everything in between.

'That rare thing, a comic epic. . . Murray is a brilliant comic writer, but also humane and touching, and he captures the misery and elation, joy and anxiety of teenage life' David Nicholls, Guardian

'Novels rarely come as funny and as moving as this utterly brilliant exploration of teenhood and the anticlimax of becoming an adult . . . one of the finest comic novels written anywhere' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

'I loved Skippy Dies . . . three novels fused into one ignited tragicomic tour de force' Ali Smith, Times Literary Supplement Books of the Year

'An unforgettably exuberant saga set in an Irish boys' school. The insulting repartee is Shakespearean, the minor characters hilarious, and Murray captures the fleeting joys and lasting sorrows of adolescence perfectly' Emma Donoghue, Daily Telegraph

'A triumph . . . brimful of wit and narrative energy' Sunday Times

'The sprawling brilliance of Paul Murray's darkly comic second novel works on many different levels . . . When you finish the last page, you may be tempted to start all over again' Metro

Reviews

Savagely funny, brimful of wit, energy, poetry and vision, unflaggingly entertaining. A triumph

—— Sunday Times

One of the most enjoyable, funny and moving reads of this year. A rare tragicomedy that's both genuinely tragic and genuinely comic

—— Guardian

Darkly comic, dazzles, every line drips ideas for fun. Unputdownably funny, captivating. A masterpiece

—— Metro

Ambitious, wise, funny, fiercely intelligent. The beauty of this cynical, hopeful, beautifully written book is that it builds a detailed world to explore life, the universe and everything

—— Sunday Express

Hilarious, heartbreaking, totally engrossing. A triumph

—— Daily Mail

Novels rarely come as funny and as moving as this utterly brilliant
exploration of teenhood and the anticlimax of becoming an adult . . . Skippy Dies is intuitive, truthful and one of the finest comic novels written anywhere. Dies? Never! Skippy lives

—— Eileen Battersby , Irish Times

I loved Skippy Dies . . . three novels fused into one ignited tragicomic tour de force

—— Ali Smith , Times Literary Supplement

Skippy Dies is one great high-octane fizz bang of a book

—— Patrick McCabe , Irish Times

Extravagantly entertaining

—— New York Times Book Review

A comic epic. Murray is a brilliant comic writer, but also humane and touching, and he captures the misery and elation, joy and anxiety of teenage life. A brilliant depiction of the heaven and hell of male adolescence

—— David Nicholls , Guardian

Murray's writing has earned a place in the contemporary international canon . . . Murray's characters are so three-dimensionally drawn and brought to such vivid life that they may haunt your dreams

—— Irish Independent

A wonderful coming-of-age tale...she twists gritty realism with folklore themes in a truly mesmerising prose

—— Good Book Guide

Jilly's descriptions of the glorious Cotswold countryside are some of the most lyrical ever written and her comedies of manners rival Nancy Mitford, if not Jane Austen

—— Daily Mail

As plots go you can't get more charming than this

—— Daily Express

The narrative zips along, pierced with her characteristically brilliant ear for dialogue and empathy for human relationships of all kinds... You won't be able to put it down once you get going

—— Daily Mail

A rollicking fantasy

—— Horse and Hound

I loved it

—— Rosie Boycott

Sit back and enjoy the ride as the queen of the bonkbuster, Jilly Cooper, delivers another fabulously entertaining saga

—— Good Housekeeping

Sharp, funny and touching

—— Times Literary Supplement

The Spoiler - set in the halcyon days before phone hacking - was one of the funniest and sharpest fleet street novels in years.

—— David Robson , Sunday Telegraph Seven

McAfee - herself a former journalist - evokes two distinct eras and styles of journalism, that of fearless frontline reportage and that of its successor: style-oriented, celebrity-obsessed features coverage... This is a pacy read that leaves little doubt in the reader's mind that one school of journalism deserves more mourning than the other

—— Alex Clark , Guardian

Marvellous satire...the novel is cunningly plotted and satisfyingly nuanced

—— Independent on Sunday

If the peek into the world of newspaper journalism afforded by the Leveson inquiry has you gasping for more, then this timely paperback release is perfect...a fiendishly funny (and frighteningly plausible) world of fiddled expenses and suspect tactics

—— Shortlist

Thoroughly enjoyable behind-the-scenes expose of an ambitious celebrity journalist's attempt to nail the scoop of her life

—— Metro

This is the paperback edition. The hardback appeared before the News Corporation bosses were dragged into the Commons. McAfee was either very prescient or close to the action, holding her fictional hacks to account for printing false stories gleaned from disreputable sources

—— Julia Fernandez , Time Out
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