This is all woven from a painfully truthful portrait of adolescence. Its setting is intimate, its ideas are expansive and its structure is subtley complex and tightly-knit. This is a rare creature: an epic comic novel. I read and loved Paul Murray's first novel An Evening Of Long Goodbyes, which was severely underrated and overlooked, and I have had to wait 7 years for this, his second book. I am two-thirds through this book and am enjoying it so much I need to write a review now. Combine Murray's style of writing and Moy’s storytelling and the result you have is both hilarious and poignant. I don't want to give away too much other than to say all the characters are wonderfully portrayed in such fantastic detail and brought to life by the first class narration of Patrick Moy. As I said the title is very self explanatory, but all is not what it seems, so my advice is to let Murray take you on this wonderfully touching journey of discovery. When you add the girls school next door into the mix the story really takes off. It deals beautifully with the story behind each of the main characters, exploring their past, their family life, what brought them to the here and now and their current emotional state. At first the reason for his death seems obvious, but the plot then goes back in time and we slowly discover that the cause of Skippy's death isn't as simple as people initially suspected. The book opens with as the title states, Daniel `Skippy' Juster dying.

It fixes in on both the young teenage students and their teachers, and their lives away from school.

Skippy Dies is based primarily in the all male Seabrook College, home to day and boarding pupils alike. Inspired, funny, heartrending & addicitive!

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray