Bee sting author Paul Murray

Is writing good for your health?
It’s good for my mental health. The purpose of it is for me to get out of my own little corner and try to see the world a little bit more broadly. It’s also a way to connect with the things you’ve closed off inside yourself, or the things you’re worried about, and deal with them in a way that gives you control. 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.

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You are approaching the milestone of turning 50. How do you feel? How is your body? (Laughs) The body is fine! I’m blessed with pretty good genes. Nothing is gone and nothing terrible has happened yet. But I suddenly noticed – just a few months ago – that the print on my medicine or bag of rice is too small, and I will soon have to resort to varifocal glasses. But I feel a little incredulous at fifty. My friends are turning fifty now, and there’s parties and stuff, and it just seems, ‘What?!In our heads we feel 35 years old or so. Not super young, but certainly not 50 either. It’s just weird.

What is your superpower?
Physically and mentally there is simply tenacity. There is a resilience or a masochistic spirit that allows me to just keep going. I run and cycle a lot and at some point you think: “Why am I doing this? There is no joy in it whatsoever.” Still, I manage to continue. That’s good when you write a book, because it takes years and you have to stay with it. There is also a kind of Catholic element to it. “This is everything you deserve! This is how life is supposed to be!” It’s punishment.

DEAD

Spoiler alert: someone dies The bee sting. Readers aren’t sure who. Will you?
There’s some debate about what exactly is happening, and I’ve heard some strange theories that I wouldn’t necessarily have considered as possibilities. People can just form their own opinions. It’s up to the reader to figure this out. But I have a pretty strong idea of ​​what’s happening.

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Catholicism taught you about the afterlife: heaven, purgatory and hell. Now what do you think happens after we die? I’d like to think there was an afterlife, but I find I just don’t think so, which is really sad in some ways. I don’t know if it’s hard for everyone to live in the here and now, or if it’s especially hard for Catholics. But when you’ve been trained to think of this life as an afterthought before the main event, it’s hard to shake it. So I have shaken off the hope that there is an afterlife, but it is difficult to enjoy the richness of life. That’s not something I think I’m particularly good at. But now that my father recently died and is also on the threshold of 50, those lines have been drawn quite sharply. When you’re 49, you know what a decade feels like. The years go by very quickly. You know what it looks like to be old after watching your parents grow old. And you realize there’s a window where you can do things, and that window is closing.