Wellness and The Bee Sting

I dive into two very long books that are also worth the investment. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray tells the story of a contemporary Irish family that has fallen on hard times and is full of secrets. Contemporary family saga Wellness by Nathan Hill is set in the suburbs of Chicago an explores the malaise of middle age marriage. It is also a send up on our preoccupation with the wellness industry. Both books have deep character backstories and are considered tragicomic novels.

Books and resources discussed:

One Day (2024), Netflix
Millionaire Matchmaker, Netflix
The Bee Sting by Paul Murray
Wellness by Nathan Hill

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Transcript

Amy Mair: 0:00

every couple has a story they tell themselves about themselves, a story that hums beneath them as a kind of engine, motoring them through trouble and into the future. For Jack and Elizabeth, that story was about falling in love at first sight, about two dreamers discovering their other half, two orphans, finding a home to people who understood each other who just got each other easily and immediately, but stories of power only insofar as they're believed, and suddenly sitting there watching Toby happily eat. Elizabeth wondered if her and Jack's story wasn't, in fact, just another highly embellished placebo, just affection they both believed, because how good and special it made them feel. And maybe all love was like that. A placebo. And maybe every marriage ceremony was part of that placebos, elaborate ornamentation. It's therapeutic context. And as soon as she considered this, it was this as if the curtain came down, and just like our clients at wellness, but upon being told the truth about their fake fake therapies, the story no longer compelled. It was the day she lost belief. It was the day the fantasy she'd known as Jack and Elizabeth soulmates had and the lingo of the relevant research on the subject lost its efficacy. Hello, welcome back to the Red Fern book review. I am your host, Amy Mair. And today we're going to talk about two of the hottest books, biggest books of the last couple years in both a book in the book world and also in a literal sense. Both these books clock in at over 600 pages. And so before I lose you, I'm going to spend most of this episode trying to convince you why they're worth picking up. But I do admit 600 pages is a lot to ask of anyone. But those books are The Bee Sting by Irish contemporary Irish author, Paul Murray, who's also the author of a boarding school book that was very popular called Skippy dies. And the other book is called Wellness by Nathan Hill, who's a He's originally from Iowa. And he's also written a contemporary book. There's actually a lot of overlap between the styles of the two books which we'll get to in a bit and this book was also an A recent Overpeck. But before we get to the bucks, I want to talk about some fun things that I've been watching or binging I should say, on Netflix. So the first thing I want to talk about is the show one day, which if you have Netflix, you've seen it pop up on on the feed because I think it's probably number one. And this is based on the book by David Nicholls that then became a movie with Anne Hathaway in 2011. And is now a Netflix show starring Leah Woodall who played the boy toy in the last edition of the White Lotus, and he plays Dexter Mae who, and Emma Morley, who's played by Ambika mod. And so what this shows about is about these two students that meet on July 15 1988, as they're graduating from the University of Edinburgh, and they have a kind of meet cute, he's dropped dead gorgeous, and party boy, and she's cute, and nerdy. And I guess she in particular has noticed him from afar and kind of never thought that they would meet and they meet on the last day as they're graduating. And they sort of have a one night stand and sort of don't, but they get together. And then they wake up the next morning and realize, you know what, we're better off as friends this is not going to work out. And they decide to do just that. And what ends up happening this show follows them meeting up every year or or looks at where they are on July 15 of every year for the next 20 years. So Oh, Dexter goes on to become a very famous television presenter for kind of a show like Top of the Pops. And Emma becomes a successful music teacher. They meet up every year, and you really hope that they end up together, but you're not so sure that they will, because they just their lives go in totally different directions. Dexter's out of control, his family doesn't know what to do. He's gotten into drugs, he, everyone around him doesn't really care about him. And then I think Emma could be having a lot more fun. And she ends up in a loveless relationship with a guy I don't know the name of the character, but he's played by the actor Johnny Weldon, and he, I think steals the show. He's very funny. And he plays her love interest that he loves her much more than she loves him. They meet at a kind of a sad sack Mexican restaurant and try and make a goal that for a number of years. But anyway, I just thought it was super romantic. I liked how it followed them through the 80s. In the 90s. It was very much my generation, the music was good, and you root for them. And, and the ending is powerful. I'll say that. So then the other thing I'm watching, which is, you know, embarrassing, but I am is Millionaire Matchmaker with Patti Stanger, and that's back on Netflix. And it's a bit of a bait and switch because I love that show it was on years ago. And I thought it was new episodes, but it's really not the rereleasing episodes from 2010. But if you can get beyond that, it's pretty fun. Patti is a matchmaker to wealthy people. And she's a bit Simon Cowell needs Gordon Ramsay, she's really not that nice to people. But she does speak a lot of truth. And she meets with these people who they need a lot of help, they tend to have a type, they tend to not take instruction very well. And anyway, it's pretty funny. So I recommend both those shows. Okay, let's get to the books. The first book I want to talk about is the beasting. I just finished this book with my book club. And we all loved it. And I really couldn't believe it. I actually wasn't going to, I didn't think I could get through it. But then I found out that a lot of people had read it. So I didn't want to be left behind and I motored through it. And I'm glad that I did. But it is a definitely a big commitment. It's 650 pages. But let me set the scene for you. So when the book starts, it's about the Barnes family. And it's a family of four, led by Dickey, who ran a runs car dealership that he inherited from his father. And it used to be very successful, and he's run it into the ground. And then he's married to Imelda, who as this, as the story opens, is selling off her jewelry on eBay. And she's was a beautiful woman, she's still beautiful. And she comes from a troubled background with her, she grew up in an abusive family and very difficult family. And then there's cast their oldest child, she's a great student, but she's sulky, and kind of a bit starting to go off the rails. She's about to graduate from high school, and she's always been a bit of a star. And now she's not really sure who she is. And then we have PJ who's one of my favorite characters, or he might be my favorite character in the book. And he's a 12 year old and he just really doesn't know when what end is up. And he kind of find some, he is lost in his world of video gaming, that's kind of how he gets through the day. And he's he's on the brink of running away from home. I thought this character was really good PJ because I thought the author did a really great job of capturing his voice, and what it was like to be 12. So what this book does it what makes it really what I really liked about it, is it has a strong sense of dramatic irony, where the reader knows something that the characters do not. And subsequent to that the chapters are long and they kind of do a deep dive into all the major members of the family. So you hear their point of view and you usually, actually, none of the characters are super likable on the face of it, but then you get to know them, and you really care about them. And you think about why is that other character doing that. But then you realize, as you go to the next chapter that you actually don't know the whole story. So in a way, it's sort of it's not, I don't believe it's meant to be a mystery. But it reads a little bit like a mystery, which I love a good mystery. So this book was more about this book. It was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2023. At its heart, it's a story of denial, on all levels, and I found out that there's a backdrop, a big theme in this book is climate change. And I think I listened to an interview with the author. And he said he felt because we're all in denial about climate change. And this family is in massive denial. So he saw the sort of way that these two themes could go hand in hand. And so I didn't really understand that when I was reading that, but that was good to know. And Dickey and one of his friends, Victor, are busy building a bunker for the end of the world, in the woods behind their home. And there's a lot of talk throughout about kind of the world ending. I will compare this book to the corrections by Jonathan Franzen. And if you liked that book, I would run out and get this book, it has the same kind of sense of humor. It's, it's this book is known as a, it's considered a tragic comedy. But it's also it's both equal parts sad and funny. And it's about a family. It's a family saga. And it's also been compared to the Prophet song by Paul Lynch, who was the winner of the Booker Prize in 2023. And he is also Irish. I have not read that book. Okay, so what else can I tell you because I don't want to tell you too much to give it away. But one of the really sad things about this book, or what your is, each family member has serious demons, but none of them are sharing. And they're all living super isolated in their own worlds while they're within this family. And you really just wish that they would share. But a few of the things I can say about the book, Dickey had a brother named Frank, and they were close in age. And he always lived in the shadow of his brother. And his brother ended up being an amazing athlete. He was a great football player, or soccer player, and was kind of the star of his town. He also was an alcoholic and had a lot of issues. But Dickey was sort of the smart one and the sensible one. And Frank had a big love affair with Imelda. And then Frank ends up dying. And so, Dickie ends up marrying Imelda. So that's kind of where that comes from. And you know, that Imelda always actually really loved Frank. So there's that the ghost of Frank is really big in their relationship. It's huge as a matter of fact. And let's see, what else am I going to tell you? Oh, this, okay, this is this is what why the book is so big. And it's the same thing happens in wellness, what I what you're either gonna love about the book, or maybe you won't, is how, what a deep dive the author does into all of the characters backstories, like, they go way back from the beginning of their lives, and talk about, you know, things that happened to them and their childhood and college that really end up for formulating who they are and why they're why they keep getting into so much trouble, like all of us. But you know, a lot of authors, you'll, you'll hear authors speak, and sometimes they write down these backstories for themselves, but they don't actually include them, for the reader and both of these authors do. So you really feel I mean, with the beasting in particular, I just felt I could only read so many pages a day because you get so involved with these characters and their lives are so intense, like you feel you really feel truly involved with their life. So I listened to an interview with Paul Murray and he had some really interesting facts to share. Um, this book was originally called Joe nothing. And that book really wasn't working for him. And what ended up happening is one of the characters in that book, Cass, who ends up being the oldest daughter, in the book, The beasting, she kind of came to the surface for him. And then Dickey emerged. So she, he ended up writing a different book. And he said it couldn't stop kind of following CASAS story. And you're not going to believe this. But he writes his stories with in long handwriting, he does not use a computer. And he showed in this interview, he shows his handwriting and it's you can barely read it. And he calls it chicken scratches, and it looks like a doctor's prescription pad. And that's how he writes his entire book. And he said that he does that, because it forces him not to edit it, and just get it out on the page. And then he sends it off. So I guess he has a really amazing editor who may be input. So for him, I'm not really sure. But he talked about sort of the difference between sending off a manuscript and having it be, however many megabytes versus something that you could just drop on your foot and do damage. And he really likes having that kind of literal piece of that big kind of giant manuscript, the thing he said is that he, one of his worries is that he could lose the manuscript because literally that blew away or anything. He'd be hooped. He packed in, he says, he packed in as many different themes that are kind of in contemporary life that he could from, there's internet porn, climate change, the rise of the far right, the car industry in Ireland and the 2000 10s. And he deals with the economic crash of 2008. And he uses kind of that signature dark Irish humor. Gravity's rainbow by Thomas Pynchon is a huge influence on him. But one of the things I wanted to talk about is the ending. And I'm going to tell you about the ending without revealing the ending. So let's see if I can if I can do this, right. But what ends up happening is, throughout the book, you have all these characters stories, and then you're the very end, all the stories start coming in paragraphs, as opposed to chapters, and it's a crescendo of like, inner woven moments. And there's this sort of dramatic space where all the characters come together. And it's, it's like a mystery being solved. And it's very, very dramatic. And it does read like a suspense novel. But all of that to say it happens. And then you aren't totally sure how, what happened in the ending, because it is a bit open for interpretation. And I walked away so mad, because I just invested, I'd read 650 pages. But I sat down with my book club, and we all sort of talked about it. And we came up with a conclusion. And we all really pretty much agreed how it does end. But he does, the author does leave it a bit open for interpretation. And by the by Paul Murray says that he knew the ending from the beginning, and it was kind of inevitable. So that's another thing, some authors, you know, the ending emerges, but he knew what it was. In terms of the title, the bee sting, which is a very clever title. He said that came last, which is interesting. And there's a lot of things about the bee sting. First of all, he liked it because the bee sting refers to. So Dickey is marrying Imelda, who really should have been marrying Frank, but Frank has died. And they sort of have a hasty marriage. Shortly after Frank dies and on the way to the wedding, as Imelda has been driven by her father, a bee stings her under her veil, and it creates all this drama and her face is injured during the wedding. And she kind of keeps her veil on and it's very symbolic. And so the symbolism, and the kids end up finding out about this later on when they're teenagers. And the symbolism is you sort of it's like a moment in time and if that hadn't happened with something else that happened, but the other thing about that is the Easting that story I just told you is a is a lie. And you have to read the book to find out why. But it didn't quite happen the way that Imelda and Dickie have told the story. So there's that because everybody's kind of lying in this book. And the other thing, the author said, Was everybody or most people have been stung by a bee. And they know what that feels like. It's all I have to say about that book, but I highly recommend it. It's it actually reads, it's not a difficult read. It's an emotionally difficult read, but it's easy to read. I really recommend it for a book club. Although if you meet every month, I'd probably do it every two months, because or do this after two months, because it will take you a bit of time to get through. Okay, so the next book, I really liked this book. It's called Wellness by Nathan Hill. And there is a lot of similarity. And the way this book was written to the beasting, it's a little it reads a little, it's a little bit of a faster read, it seems a little shorter to me, it also clocks in just over 600. I read, this reminds me of the circle by Dave Eggers, and kind of it's his send up on Google. And I found it to be I think it fits into that genre. Also with Jonathan Franzen of hysterical realism. It's kind of over the top parity here at the same time, there's a deep truth to it. The New York Times calls this book intricate, unruly, a synchronous and a little Baroque, which I think is all very true. So Nathan Hill, made his name for his book, The next which does a dive into 1960s radicalism, in gaming culture and contemporary campus politics. But this book is a bigger book. And so to set it up, the book is set in 2015. And it chronicles kind of the mid marriage malaise of the main characters, Jack, and Elizabeth. And he is a photographer, and adjunct art professor. And she runs this company called wellness. And wellness was meant to originally debunk fad diets and other health scams. But then in the end, she decides to basically skin scam everyone. She's not trying when I say that she's not trying to scam everybody. But what she does is she creates placebo medications that actually ended up fixing people's problems. And she's best known for this love potion. That's actually nothing. And she gives it to people. And it fixes their love life. And her company's called wellness. And to further the deception, whoever's coming to her clinic, the signage, outside the door changes. So the font completely changes. It could be like a 19th century font, a contemporary sans serif font. Like it all depends on who's walking through the door. So that kind of furthers the deception. The so I really related to this book, in terms of its sense of place. So just like Jack and Elizabeth, they meet in downtown Chicago in the 90s, where their students, and I also went to school in the 90s in Chicago. And that's where I met my husband. So I really could relate to that kind of their meeting story. And what ended up happening was, they met in the Chicago art scene, they both lived in this neighborhood called Wicker Park. And it made me laugh, because when I was there in the 90s, it was all about Wicker Park, which was a had not been a very nice neighborhood and was very much transitioning. And everybody wanted to live there. It wasn't even totally safe. But it was so trendy and lots of really cool things were coming out of that neighborhood and there's a band called Wicker Park. And so Jack and Elizabeth are living they're being artsy students, and they live in an apartment apartment complex, or apartment buildings across from each other and they can seeing in each other's windows, and they both kind of secretly are obsessing about the other, and they hope to meet one day. And one day, Elizabeth is kind of in a beer tramping around on a beer sodden floor at a bar. And she sees Jack who works, I think he does like the electronics or somehow helps out with the band that's playing. And so they have this sort of meet cute. And they end up together. And he is, at the same time around that time, Jack has created this art that made him really famous, like not very long after that. And what it is, is he accidentally spills chemicals on a page, and that he made a mistake, but someone saw it and thought, Oh, that's amazing art. So he does all this like crazy art, based on chemical spills. And then much later in the book, you find out sort of in a very poignant way, what the backstory is behind the art that he actually creates. So that they fast forward 20 years, and they're living in the Chicago suburbs, and they're trying to build this really fancy. They're part of like a build for a condo. They're waiting on a high end condo, they've got the super annoying eight year old, who kind of does all the perfect things and eats all the right foods. And they're just so far from those people that they were originally. And I thought that was really powerful. And to that point, I wanted to read a little paragraph that sort of talks about their marriage, where it started and where it came from. And it says every couple has a story they tell themselves about themselves, a story that hums beneath them as a kind of engine, motoring them through trouble and into the future. For Jack and Elizabeth. That story was about falling in love at first sight, about two dreamers discovering their other half, two orphans, finding a home to people who understood each other who just got each other easily and immediately. But stories of power only insofar as they're believed, and suddenly sitting there watching Toby happily eat. Elizabeth wondered if her and Jack's story wasn't in fact, just another highly embellished placebo, just a fiction they both believed, because how good and special it made them feel. It may be all love was like that. A placebo. And maybe every marriage ceremony was part of that placebos, elaborate ornamentation, its therapeutic context. And as soon as she considered this, it was this as if the curtain came down. And just like our clients at wellness, upon being told the truth about their fake fake therapies, the story no longer compelled. It was the day she lost belief. It was the day the fantasy she'd known as Jack and Elizabeth soulmates had, and the lingo of the relevant research on this subject lost its efficacy. I would call this book kind of a, I describe it as a lighter Jennifer Egan book, there's a section called the needy users a drama and seven algorithms. And it is crazy, it goes off in this total nathi direction. And it's just it's a lot of fun. And Jennifer Egan does that she'll take on specifically I'm referring to visit from the Goon Squad, where she'll take sections and just like go have a completely different voice and go off on all these different tangents not to talk about the ending, and I will talk about it without giving it away, of course, but one of the things that drives, Nathan Hill loves to get into people's elaborate backstories just like Paul Murray, and those, there's some mysteries in their lives that kind of come together at the end and you you start to understand that but the very ending is there's a dramatic scene and something happens. And the main characters have to make a decision. And you're not really sure what that decision is and that it's a bit open for interpretation. So I found that a little bit frustrating but also already too. So just to give you a little warning when both these books you're going to be even though you're going to commit the if you read it, read them to reading over 600 pages. Not everything is wrapped up with a bow. I want to thank you so much for tuning in. And I'm looking forward to having another discussion with you again soon. Happy reading