Skippy Dies

Skippy Dies (2010), a tragicomic work of literary fiction by Paul Murray, tells the story of the events that led to a young teen’s sudden death as well as its aftermath. The novel started out as a short story about the relationship between a student and his teacher, quickly sprawled into a manuscript that ran over a thousand pages, then was cut down significantly for publication. Murray is an Irish novelist whose first novel, An Evening of Long Goodbyes, was shortlisted for the Whitbread First Novel Prize in 2003.

The novel is set at the fictional Seabrook College, a Catholic school in Dublin, Ireland. Daniel “Skippy” Juster dies in the first chapter, collapsing in the middle of a doughnut-eating contest at a local shop. His friend Ruprecht, another contestant, watches horror-struck. Skippy writes, “tell Lori” in spilled donut jam on the floor as he is dying; he does not manage to finish his message. His death is the result of an overdose of tranquilizers—a fact that stuns his family and the surrounding community. Both his death and his drug abuse seem to have come out of nowhere. Through the rest of the novel, Murray shows the factors that led Skippy to his sudden and tragic demise.

The story moves backward in time several months. Skippy, a boarder at Seabrook, is on the cusp of puberty. It isn’t an easy transition for him or for any of the other boys: moving through the hallways is like “being in a B.O.-smelling forest.” Although the boys are a diverse group, they are also the same, consumed by the same anxieties, loneliness, emerging sexual desires, sophomoric humor, and inner turmoil. Many boys are homesick, feeling abandoned by well-to-do parents who enjoy their child-free social lives and who rarely bother to visit their boarding children.



The faculty does not pay much more attention to the students than their parents do. The acting principal, Costigan, nicknamed “the Automator” thanks to his pompous, out-of-touch speeches on tradition, bullies the school’s teachers. Father Green, or “Pere Vert,” combats a secret struggle with pedophilic urges. Howard the Coward, so nicknamed for a mysterious incident that occurred when he was a Seabrook student himself, attempts to redeem himself after failing to establish a more successful career in the city. Now a history teacher living with an American girlfriend, he begins to develop a crush on a substitute teacher. The English teacher, Father Slattery, is decrepit and losing his memory; he teaches the same few Robert Frost poems over and over, unable to remember that he has already covered them.

It becomes clear that Skippy is a troubled young man. His mother is dying of cancer, and he is far from her. He dreams of his parents bringing him home, but they never visit. Although he is asthmatic, he joins the swim team, hounded by a father who wants him to “be all that he can be.” He searches in vain for some solace, for a place where he can fit in.

It’s no surprise that Skippy’s friend and roommate, Ruprecht, is popular in their social circle. Ruprecht may be slovenly, overweight, and strange, but he is brilliant. He talks incessantly of string theory; he is the subject of teasing, but his clever mind offers the possibility of escape to the other boys. Ruprecht has plans to build a time machine, and the boys are at an age where the construction of such a fantastical device does not seem out of reach. Ruprecht dreams of traveling to an alternate dimension, somewhere far from Seabrook, somewhere where he—and the other students—might be wanted, might belong.



Skippy develops a crush on a girl named Lori from a neighboring school, Saint Bridget’s. Lori, on the other hand, is obsessed with Carl, Seabrook’s resident bully. Carl and another student named Barrie are also the school’s drug pushers, supplying a steady stream of diet pills, weed, ecstasy, and more. Carl is cruel and sadistic, and his behavior becomes increasingly deviant over the course of the novel.

At a Halloween dance with the girls from Saint Bridget’s, Skippy musters the courage to talk to Lori. Meanwhile, Howard the Coward talks the substitute teacher, Miss McIntyre, into sleeping with him. The students are left unchaperoned, and the dance devolves into a strange primal orgy, teenagers giving in to their urges.

Skippy receives mixed signals from Lori, but the attention from her is enough to make Carl angry. Carl begins to stalk and target Skippy. Meanwhile, Skippy is disturbed by confusing memories of sexual abuse, but he cannot fully remember what happened to him or if his memories are real. Finally, Skippy finds the escape he’s been searching for and downs some pills he had hidden under his pillow. These are the tranquilizers that will kill him.



After Skippy’s death, an investigation uncovers the truth. Two pedophiles lurk among the school’s faculty, and Skippy was a victim of both. One is Father Green, who made an unspecified attempt to seduce Skippy. Green feels deep guilt for his actions, particularly in light of Skippy’s death, and quits teaching to do charitable work with the poor people of Dublin instead, in repentance.

The other is Skippy’s swim coach, who gave Skippy sleeping pills and raped him while he was unconscious. The haunting half-memories of that rape were what pushed an emotionally fragile boy past his limits.

Though the administrators at Seabrook discover the truth, they agree to handle the matter internally rather than make the abuse publicly known. The truth would damage the school’s reputation. Skippy’s parents seem satisfied with the lack of answers, and the book ends quietly without any real resolution.



Skippy Dies received praise and critical acclaim. The book made Time’s list of 2010’s best books of the year and received nominations for the Bolinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, the 2010 Irish Book Awards, and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Murray went on to win the Bolinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize with his next novel, The Mark and the Void, in 2016.