Q: Oh, what's this? I don't quite understand. As I recall you said a few derogatory things about Skippy Dies when you were on p 120 and even by p 250 you weren't dancing in the streets and giving out free copies, and yet, here we see five fat stars sitting there, I counted them, and as I understand it that's the maximum number you can award, so what accounts for this seeming change of heart and are you a little ashamed of your original remarks? Would you wish to do a little public recanting? 
 A : Yes, well, thank you for reminding me, but may I say that this brilliant novel is a very slow burner which gradually changes its character from - may I say? - relentless, verging on annoying, schoolboy humour (it's set in a posh school) into horror, terror, cruelty, you know, the whole nine yards of human experience, it's right here. Did I say it's brilliant? But you do need a little patience. And I would like to thank all of the people on this site who wrote great reviews (Paquita, Krok Zero and David Giltinan for instance) and those who told me to carry on. Thank you. 
 Q: So what was that thing you were telling me about Romeo and Juliet and Truman Capote? I wasn't really listening - you can go on at times you know. 
 A: Oh well, the title, you see, Skippy Dies, plus the very first couple of pages, in which Skippy actually dies, gives the central event of the book - 661 pages long - completely away. So it's like Romeo & Juliet where the prologue tells you 
 A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life; 
 Whose misadventured piteous overthrows 
 Do with their death bury their parents' strife 
 See? it gives away the whole plot immediately. Also, in Truman Capote's best story Children on Their Birthdays he tells you that the amazing Miss Lily Jane Bobbitt will be run over by a bus in the first paragraph. First you think - how can this device work? But it does. 
 Q: What were you saying about how long it was? I mean it's actually really bloody long isn't it. 
 A: I was saying that it's 661 pages and not a page too long! Because it's like the way Jonathan Franzen makes his last two novels work. He gets his family and he starts filling in all the details, and one thing leads on very naturally to the next, so that there's kind of a plot but it's more like the plot in your own life, i.e. doesn't feel like a plot, and in Skippy, Paul Murray fills in the school and a few of the the foul-mouthed boys and their teachers and it's like a giant canvas, which bit shall I add in today, how about some trees here and a car crash there, and lots of drugs over here, and some horrible sex behind that car park. Not that there's any other resemblance between Mr Franzen and Mr Murray, it's just a kind of technique thing which for me works magnificently. 
 Q: I heard you ranting on about the Booker as usual. What's that got to do with the price of a pound of artichokes? 
 A: Skippy made the 2010 Booker long list - that's all. Not even the short list. I mean, what? What's that all about? Also, it made the Costa Prize shortlist but didn't win. Maggie O'Farrell won both damned prizes for The Hand that First held Mine. So now I can't read that one because I'd be reading through the clenched teeth of resentment. 
 Q: If you could pick one reason why you thought this was so fivestarry, what would...that...reason...beeeee...? Mmmm? And can I have the last piece of carrot cake? 
 A: This is a book about youth culture which in Britain is a phrase often pronounced sardonically in Estuary English like this : 
 Yoof cowcha 
 You could add an equally sardonic "innit" for extra effect, as in : 
 "It's yoof cowcha, innit" 
 I've complained in other reviews that often when there are actual young characters in novels the dialogue sounds like the author is one of those elderly uncles still trying to crack on that he's down with the kids and hip to the beat on the street, with toe curling results. Skippy Dies gets everything note perfect. Paul Murray knows what boys talk like. It's almost like he was one not very long ago. I enjoyed the total beyond-fetishising beyond-obsession centrality of the mobile phone. I enjoyed the mad disjunction between all the stuff in the boys' heads (love! Sex! Science!) and the actual reality they inhabit (being jerked around! Bad blowjobs! Stupid experiments which fail!). I enjoyed the vitality and boundless fizzing onrushing prose which Paul Morris brings to the subject of wretchedness and bleak betrayal. 
 Q: One last thing - who was your favourite character? 
 A: Mario, the 14 Year old Italian-Irish would-be stallion, who is consistently good value. Regarding the upcoming Hallowe'en Hop, for instance, he says: "I don't know about you guys, but I am planning to score a lot of bitches at this Hop. Probably I will start with one really hot girl, straight sex, no frills. Then I will have a sixty-nine. Then it will be time for a threesome." 
 To summarise : Skippy Dies - believe the hype.