Skippy Dies

Ruprecht Van Doren is an overweight genius whose hobbies include very difficult maths and the Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence. Daniel 'Skippy' Juster is his roommate. In the grand old Dublin institution that is Seabrook College for Boys, nobody pays either of them much attention. But when Skippy falls for Lori, the Frisbee-playing Siren from the girls' school next door, suddenly all kinds of people take an interest - including Carl, part-time drug-dealer and official school psychopath. While his teachers battle over modernisation, and Ruprecht attempts to open a portal into a parallel universe, Skippy, in the name of love, is heading for a showdown - in the form of a fatal doughnut-eating race that only one person will survive. This unlikely tragedy will explode Seabrook's century-old complacency and bring all kinds of secrets into the light, until teachers and pupils alike discover that the fragile lines dividing past from present, love from betrayal - and even life from death - have become almost impossible to read...

ISBN 0241141826   Pages 672 ISBN13 9780241141823 (What's this?)   Volumes 3 Paperbacks Publisher Penguin Books Ltd   Weight (grammes) 484 Imprint Hamish Hamilton Ltd   Published in London Format Paperback   Height (mm) 199 Publication date 04 Feb 2010   Width (mm) 132 DEWEY 823.92   Spine width (mm) 45 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level General

Praise for "Skippy Dies: " “Extravagantly entertaining . . . One of the great pleasures of this novel is how confidently [Paul Murray] addresses such disparate topics as quantum physics, video games, early-20th-century mysticism, celebrity infatuation, drug dealing, Irish folklore and pornography . . . Six hundred sixty-one pages may seem like a lot to devote to a bunch of flatulence-obsessed kids, but that daunting length is part and parcel of the cause to which "Skippy Dies," in the end, is most devoted. Teenagers, though they may not always act like it, are human beings, and their sadness and loneliness (and their triumphs, no matter how temporary) are as momentous as any adult’s And novels about them—if they’re as smart and funny and touching as "Skippy Dies"—can be just as long as they like.” —Dan Kois, "The New York Times Book Review"

“Murray’s humor and inventiveness never flag. And despite a serious theme—what h

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