Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses the novel’s treatment of physical and emotional abuse.

The bee sting, which is important enough to be the title of the novel, is a symbol of the lies told to protect oneself and others from shame. During Imelda’s wedding, she never removes her veil, telling everyone that she is hiding a welt from a bee sting. In reality, she hides the fact that her father punched her in the face on the way to ceremony—a brutal and abusive response to the news that she is pregnant, and one which ends their relationship. When Paddy Jo moves the rest of the family to England, he tells Imelda’s brothers that she has died.

These various lies become a mainstay of Imelda’s life—just as she hides her father’s violence, so too does she work to obscure her background as an adult; just as her father emotionally abused her by putting her sexuality on a pedestal while physically abusing her brothers, so does he continue to emotionally manipulate her by separating her from her brothers.

Through the nonexistent bee sting, Murray considers whether all family mythologies are ultimately based on stories that hide painful truths.