Zey

“Sam's doctor said to him, ‘The good news is that the pain is in your head.'But I am in my head, Sam thought.”
Friendship, like other forms of art, is a matter of communication. It's half luck and half effort, equally weighed and born out of a desire to be understood. Perspective isn't easy to convey and empathy isn't always easy to give. Friends are made, then cliques break up, someone moves away, gets a boyfriend, is now obsessed with yoga, doesn't call as often, has a baby. Maybe you don't click anymore or maybe you reunite and wonder, ‘Why did we ever lose touch in the first place?'

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow explores the long-term, sometimes tumultous relationship between Sam and Sadie, and later, Sam and Sadie and Marx. The prose is exciting and delicate, with plenty of space for heartache. It's hard to put the book down once you've begun to watch these three struggle together to make it through their 20s (especially if you're in that age bracket like I am). I found this book to be compelling, flaws and all. So I didn't mind the uneven pacing and somewhat unsatisfying ending as much as I would have with another book.

Friendship can be such a blasé word to describe what it is between you and the people who show up for you. When I broke-up with a close friend late last year, I felt that it wasn't taken as seriously as if I were to break-up with a significant other. No instructions are given for how to grieve when you lose a friend.
”The way to turn an ex-lover into a friend is to never stop loving them, to know that when one phase of a relationship ends it can transform into something else. It is to acknowledge that love is both a constant and a variable at the same time.”
I have come to believe that love is permanent but it ebbs and flows. Just like the first law of thermodynamics, love can never be destroyed. It morphs (jealousy, guilt, regret) and it fuels (anger, hurt, resentment). But then there is always the possibility that it'll find its way back to itself.

This was not a relaxing read for me, since it deals with the loss of loved ones, especially in the middle of the book, which was a shock to the system. Content warning for gun violence, among other things. Also, it did turn me off a bit that both Sam and Marx were attracted to Sadie. I think it's a tired cliché in the depictions of friendships between men and women.

Lastly, this book was lent to me by a friend. Shout-out to her.

THAT ENDING??!!

We begin the story through the eyes of Cass, the elder daughter, with her exam stress, growing pains, and complicated friendship with Elaine. Already there is the chaos with the failing business of her father Dickie, and the pressure it puts on the dysfunctional relationship with her mother Imelda. Then there's PJ, the younger brother who's struggling to cope with all the changes but is trying to make himself as unobtrusive as possible. Imelda and Dickie's marriage is a strange blend of trauma, obligation, thwarted desires, repeated mistakes but also a strong sense of family.

Anxiety about impending doom and decline due to change - climate, financial, technological, and even spiritual - serves as a backdrop to the novel's themes of generational trauma and familial bonds. There are things left unsaid and abandoned, and these silences fester into something septic.

At its core The Bee Sting is a family drama, but it read like a thriller. There was a constant tension, an unease that refused to let go until the very last page, and even then, it lingered. Having read Murray's Skippy Dies a few years ago, I found his style unmistakable, with the layered storytelling and connections through time and perspective, that left me speechless by the end.