Skippy Dies is a 2010 tragicomic novel by Paul Murray

Paul Murray (author)

Paul Murray is an Irish novelist, the author of the novels An Evening of Long Goodbyes and Skippy Dies.-Biography:Murray was born in Dublin in 1975, the son of a professor of Anglo-Irish Drama in UCD and a teacher mother. Murray attended Blackrock College in south Dublin, an experience that would...

. It was shortlisted for the 2010 Costa Book Awards

2010 Costa Book Awards

The shortlists were announced on 17 November 2010. The winners in each category were announced on 4 January 2011.-Children's Book:Winner:*Jason Wallace, Out of ShadowsShortlist:*Lucy Christopher, Flyaway*Sharon Dogar, Annexed...

, longlisted for the 2010 Man Booker Prize

Man Booker Prize

The Man Booker Prize for Fiction is a literary prize awarded each year for the best original full-length novel, written in the English language, by a citizen of the Commonwealth of Nations, Ireland, or Zimbabwe. The winner of the Man Booker Prize is generally assured of international renown and...

, and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award

National Book Critics Circle Award

The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

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Plot

Skippy Dies follows the lives of a group of students and faculty members at the fictional Seabrook College, a Catholic boarding school in Dublin. The title character, Daniel "Skippy" Juster, dies during a donut eating contest in the novel's opening scene. The rest of the novel explores the events leading up to Skippy's death, as well as the aftermath within the Seabrook community.

Development

The novel began as a short story, concerning a pupil and a teacher, but it quickly outgrew this as Murray created further characters. A later draft of the novel ran to a thousand pages, though Murray culled much of this before publication. The Seabrook College of the book is based on Blackrock College

Blackrock College

Blackrock College is a Catholic voluntary secondary school for boys aged 14–18, located in Williamstown, Blackrock, County Dublin, Ireland. The College was founded by French missionaries in 1860, to act as a school and civil service training centre. Set in of grounds, it has an illustrious...

, Murray's old secondary school.

Reception

Skippy Dies received almost universally good reviews, with most reviewers commenting on the mixture of comic and tragic writing and the novel's large scope. The book was included in Time

Time (magazine)

Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...

s list of the ten best books of 2010, ranked at number three. British Prime Minister David Cameron

David Cameron

David William Donald Cameron is the current Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, First Lord of the Treasury, Minister for the Civil Service and Leader of the Conservative Party. Cameron represents Witney as its Member of Parliament ....

 was reported to be reading the book during his 2011 summer holidays in Spain. The book was also nominated for the 2010 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize

Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize

The Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize is the UK's only literary award for comic literature. Established in 2000 and named in honour of P G Wodehouse, past winners include Paul Torday in 2007 with Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and Marina Lewycka with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian 2005 and...

 for Comic Fiction and for the 2010 Irish Book Awards

Irish Book Awards

The Irish Book Awards is an annual Irish literary award given to books and authors in various categories. It is the only literary award supported by all-Irish bookstores. First awarded in 2006, they grew out of the Hughes & Hughes bookstore's Irish Novel of the Year Prize which was inaugurated in...

 Irish Novel of the Year. In 2011, it was nominated for the 2012 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award

The International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award is an international literary award for a work of fiction, jointly sponsored by the city of Dublin, Ireland and the company IMPAC. At €100,000 it is one of the richest literary prizes in the world...

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Selected reviews

• Patrick Ness. "Skippy Dies by Paul Murray". The Guardian. February 6, 2010. Retrieved on May 5, 2011.
• Dan Kois. "Ghost, Come Back Again". New York Times. September 3, 2010. Retrieved on May 5, 2011.
• Michael Schaub. "'Skippy Dies in Dublin': A Funny Flashback Follows". NPR. September 8, 2010. Retrieved on May 5, 2011.