Talk about truth in advertising.... 
 As promised in the title, Skippy dies. In fact, he dies in the first few pages when he falls off his stool in a doughnut shop. Who was this kid and what happened? Well, that's what the rest of the book is for. 
 Skippy was Daniel Juster, a shy and nerdy boy at a Catholic boy's school in Ireland. In the time before his death, we meet a variety of characters that are unknowingly part of the chain of events that lead to his untimely demise. There's Skippy's roommate, an overweight student named Ruprecht who is fascinated by the promise of multiple dimensions hypothesized in M-theory and who makes bizarre inventions that never work. Lorelai is a girl from a neighboring school that Skippy has developed a crush on, but she's also the object of a creepy obsession of one of his fellow students who is also a pyschopath and novice drug dealer. Howard 'The Coward' Fallon is Skippy's history teacher with his own complicated history at the school and who hopes to cure his dissatisfaction with his life by sleeping with a beautiful substitute geography teacher. Greg Costigan is the acting principal who cares so much about the school that looking out for its students has slipped far down his priority list. 
 What becomes apparent before Skippy's death is that something is seriously troubling him, but all the characters are so wrapped up in the details of their own lives that no one takes the time to really help the young man. The resulting guilt causes a wave of bizarre repercussions. 
 I've seen this book compared to Infinite Jest and Jonathan Franzen. Those are apt, and I'd also say that it reminded me a bit of the film Donnie Darko. However, this is also a unique and moving book that had me at times laughing, angry, sad wistful, depressed and hopeful. The characters are incredibly well drawn and believable. Greg Costigan in particular is such a son-of-a-bitch that I wished he was real so I could get on a plane to Ireland just so I could kick him in the junk. 
 The teen characters are also very well done, and Murray absolutely nailed that weird contradiction where kids that age have well-honed instincts about some things like the hypocrisy of adults but are still naive enough to think that you can get pregnant from oral sex. 
 Also, I listened to the audio version of this and it was done with a full cast doing all the different dialogue. It was one of the best listening experiences I've had yet with an audible book.