Skippy Dies

By: Paul Murray

Narrated by: Nicola Barber, Fred Berman, Clodagh Bowyer, Terry Donnelly, Sean Gormley, Khristine Hvam, John Keating, Lawrence Lowry, Graeme Malcolm, Paul Nugent

Length: 23 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

This touching and uproarious novel by author Paul Murray made everyone’s best fiction of 2010 lists, including The Washington Post, Financial Times, Village Voice, and others. Why Skippy dies and what happens next is the mystery that links the boys of Dublin’s Seabrook College (Ruprecht Van Doren, the overweight genius obsessed with string theory; Carl, the teenager drug dealer and borderline psychotic; Philip Kilfether, the basketball-playing midget) to their parents and teachers in ways that no one could have imagined.

This unique production of Murray’s heartfelt exploration of the pain, joy, and beauty of adolescence features an all-star narrating cast of 16 Audible favorites: John Keating, Graeme Malcom, Khristine Hvam, Nicola Barber, Fred Berman, Clodagh Bowyer, Terry Donnelly, Sean Gormley, Lawrence Lowry, Paul Nugent, Tim Smallwood, Fiona Walsh, Fiana Toibin, Declan Sammon, Heather O'Neill, and Ed Malone.

©2010 Paul Murray (P)2010 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Hilarious, haunting, and heartbreaking, it is inarguably among the most memorable novels of the year to date." ( Booklist)

"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." ( Washington Post Book World)

"Extravagantly entertaining." ( The New York Times Book Review)

Wonderful Young Adult Novel

Perhaps Audible should label books like this as Young Adult so readers know the book is centered on the joys and horrors of the teenage years. I think the book is a wonderful telling of a very difficult story about kids in a rich kids private school in Dublin, including some twists and turns you won't see in similar books. The ending, coming at the end of some amazing events, was sad but hopeful. The reading by the cast is fantastic.

Awesome performance mediocre story

The story was fun for the first few hours and then it lost me. I just couldnt take anymore teenage angst or young adult angst for that matter.

Moving and delicious writing

A great story filled with delectably vulgar descriptions. Some people say it started slow, but I never felt that way. If you've ever lost someone, there is a lot to be gotten from this book. Beautiful message, beautiful writing, beautiful narration.
HIGHLY recommended!

Really great

I thought this audio version was pretty fantastic (other than the totally over-the-top Italian accent of the guy who voiced Mario and Guido)! And I thought the story was great, although I can see why some folks had a hard time with it (there's a lot of crudeness and general bad behavior, from kids and adults alike), and I will admit to having had some doubts myself at times. About three-fourths of the way through I was thinking, "Okay, where on earth is this going?!?" -- at that point I felt alienated from pretty much every single one of the characters (except for Jeff, because he was my fave). But that last quarter really pulled things together for me, and I absolutely loved the ending. Definitely worth a read.

Great Book!

Would you listen to Skippy Dies again? Why?

A well written book full of coming of age angst, and science fiction. I will gladly listen to this book again because the language was very poetic and engaging. The characters were well developed and the plot unravels in such a beautiful tragedy.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Skippy Dies?

The characters left behind after Skippy dies as they try to reconstruct their lives are most memorable.
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Very entertaining, great listen

Funny and quirky, this story engages from the very beginnig.

The cast of narrators all were excellent.

The author did a great job capturing the pathos of adolescence as well as the older characters.

It gets...betterish?

This tale of Irish boarding school and midlife crises suffers a crisis of its own. Like the students and teachers, it meanders, touches on flashes of interest of brilliance but is mired mostly in the 20 something character cast and the multiple mini dramas surrounding this cast. Skippy, the main character to the untrained eye, is actually not particularly fleshed out, nor is his death well explained. I found parts two and three to be more engaging (the first few hours were about as dull as school as) but it is overall not a cant stop listening book. The voice actors did their very best with fairly trite material, and the multiple actors really saved this one from being completely impossible to follow.

More fun than a pail of teenagers

I took the book too seriously at first, but once I understood the style of humor I was set. The writing is skilled and quite witty. There are segments that could be published as short stand-alone pieces. The kids are likeable (although sometimes not) and always interesting. The adults made me cringe, and then laugh. The narration was excellent, with the voices helpfully distinct and well matched to the characters. I thoroughly enjoyed the book and can heartily recommend it to anyone who has affection for teenage boys.

Very odd and moving. It's wonderful.

It's like Donnie Darko in an Irish Catholic prep school. So many layers. Had some very deep insights. Irish Mythology and science meet with teenage angst and adult futility and hypocrisy.

Elegant symphony of the cosmos and angst

Would you consider the audio edition of Skippy Dies to be better than the print version?

They are both great. I can't imagine the narrator doing a better job, though.

What did you like best about this story?

The emotional impact.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Not sure who's who, but everyone did a great job.

Who was the most memorable character of Skippy Dies and why?

Skippy due to the tragedy of his circumstances and the ability to connect to his character.

Any additional comments?

Christmas Canon (after Pachelbel’s Canon)
-Trans-Siberian Orchestra

"Life has its own hidden forces which you can only discover by living."
-Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher (1813 - 1855)

"Maybe instead of strings it’s stories things are made of, an infinite number of tiny vibrating stories; once upon a time they all were part of one big giant superstory, except it got broken up into a jillion different pieces, that’s why no story on its own makes any sense, and so what you have to do in a life is try and weave it back together,…"
-Skippy Dies

Angst, that amorphous feeling of dread, has its balance in tragicomedy and metaphysical hope. Teenage angst, most of all, is defining in its shattering of illusion, its realization that the world is only grey, and that there is no real answer. In this thoroughly entertaining and achingly poignant book, Paul Murray managed to weave an elegant allegorical fabric of the cosmos in which the mathematical system of classical music is the perfect mode of communication. Yet this quantum world is heartbreakingly chaotic in the macro world of students in a prep school, its faculty members and the employees of a donut shop. It’s a multiverse where particles connects and vibrates in a symphonic movement of banality and hope. Highlighted are the painful lives of the troubled Daniel "Skippy" Juster, the wishful Ruprecht Van Doren, and the regretful Howard.

The story takes place in Seabrook, a Dublin private school composed of hormonal teenage boys, in particular a group of 14-year-old friends. This world of privileged children and haunted faculty members is full of vivid characterization and dark humor, with the sex-obsessed Mario proudly touting his three-year-old unused lucky condom, Ruprecht’s foibles in his search for a way to the other universe, and male infatuations with schoolgirl Lori and Geography substitute teacher Aurelia McIntyre. There is also a villain in the form of drug dealer Carl, Skippy’s sociopathic rival for Lori. Underlying this symphonic movement with its variation of voices is the poignant bass of the lost Skippy. Murray masterfully integrates a large number of point of views, from the students to the employees of the donut shop, seamlessly moving from third person to first person, from trite musings to deep insight, and from humorous to tragic. All this with a curious mixture of humor, tragedy and hope.

The personal stories are not only about teenage angst, but also about the Seabrook faculty members. The adult Seabrook staff members are no less lost in their navigation through life. "Howard the Coward" Fallon, the history teacher, drifts through a life of disappointments; Gregory L. Costigan, the economics teacher and acting Principal, is obsessed with the business side of running the school; Father Jerome Green, the scary French teacher atoning for a past sin, is an overachiever of altruistic accomplishments; and Tom Roche, former star athlete and swim coach, has a life that is tragically intertwined with Howard’s disappointments.

The plot starts out with the big bang, the death of Daniel "Skippy" Juster after he scrawled with donut jelly, "TELL LORI", for Ruprecht to tell Lori that he loves her. Death and tragic love sets the tone for a story that accelerates into a revelation of everyone’s imperfect universe. In this ever changing and interacting donut shaped universe, things manifest in time and goes back into the fold. We are swept up in this canon of unrequited loves, loneliness in a crowd, and the tortured decision to tow the line or be true to oneself.

Skippy Dies is a Möbius strip with the teenage Skippy’s story balancing the adult Howard’s story. Both are tainted by a defining shaming moment that would cause them to badly cope with the emotional impact, Skippy through a numbing drug haze, Howard through living his life in safe banality, avoiding confrontation. Both Skippy and Howard endured distracting infatuation with unattainable princesses. Besides risking his fragile ego, Skippy risks a dangerous encounter with Carl, his rival for Lori’s affections. Howard risks the safety of his mundane relationship with his girlfriend and his stale job as a history teacher to follow the giddiness of an adolescent infatuation with Aurelia. For all their bravery in trying to attain their princesses, the failed knights suffer defeat in a world of amorphous grey dragons that can never be lanced and defeated. Whereas Skippy managed to escape to the other universe via death, Howard lives on in this universe facing the repercussions of a life disappointing himself and others. Both tainted knights who care too much in an uncaring world ultimately were destroyed by the amorphous dragon.

Both Skippy and Howard’s cowardice reverberated through others. After Skippy’s self-destruction, Ruprecht’s grief turned into obsession with finding the portal into another universe that has the answers. Lori, Skippy’s love interest, aim to slowly disappear from this universe. In a further demonstration of the entanglement of vibrating strings, Howard’s cowardice reverberated through time affecting Skippy in the form of the tragic ex-superstar Tom. Murray deftly creates a believably surrealistic effect that combines a quantum world with the macro world, as time slows for the drugged Skippy as he muses how the painkillers can help him in his travel to another universe. After Skippy made his successful journey through the black hole of death, Ruprecht’s search for a way to the other universe grew to a desperate intensity that results in a humorous adventure as the boys break into the girl’s school to seek the perfect point of entry to the other universe. What emerges is a hilarious sequence that ends with Rupert and his quartet sending a message to Skippy via the aching hybrid of the hopeful Pachelbel’s Canon and the idealistic BETHani song,

"If I had three wishes I would give away two,
Cos I only need one, cos I only want you."

Split into four movements, Hopeland, Heartland, Ghostland, and Afterland, Skippy Dies is a verbal symphony about the need to make sense of a chaotic world in which there is no clear good or bad, the vortex of change is unceasing, and nobody wins. What could be a Bildungsroman, full of laughable awkward moments of the foibles of self-discovery, ends up giving the impression that there is no answer or panacea to life’s difficulty. It is about self-delusion, the lifting of the veils of delusion, and the self-preserving need to go back into the delusional world. Sadly, it is also about the destruction of those who cannot hang on to the iron armor of illusion.