Book Review Skippy Dies 
by Paul Murray
Book Review: Skippy Dies
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Though set in a prestigious Irish boys school, Skippy Dies is not your average homoerotic jape-fest. It starts off like that, certainly: a teacher is mocked by unruly pupils; a boy is bullied; students brag about their imagined sexual conquests, but this is just scratching the surface.
It turns out Skippy, a pupil, has problems, not least his overarching obsession with a girl in the neighbouring school who he watches through his roommate’s telescope. His roommate meanwhile is more interested in the number of dimensions in the universe and the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence. Over in the staffroom a sexy substitute teacher plunges English teacher Mr. Howard into a bout of existential angst.
It almost seems as if the author started with this tinder-box setting - full of lust, hope, fear and humiliation - and then let his mind wander, conjuring eccentric, hilarious characters into existence and making us believe in them with pitch-perfect dialogue and pithy observations.
The result is this three-volume, 660-page box set. If you’re taking a long journey, or just planning on staying inside until winter is over, you could do a lot worse.
pb, Hamish Hamilton, £16.99
Posted on Wednesday 17th February 2010
Alistair Brown
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