WELCOME TO THE CLUB, CAT!
THERE’S A NEW NAME IN THE WEXFORD NOVELISTS’ CLUB. CAT HOGAN LAUNCHED ‘THEY ALL FALL DOWN’, HER FIRST NOVEL, RECENTLY, AND MARIA PEPPER CHATTED TO HER AFTERWARDS
THEY WERE hanging from the rafters upstairs in the Sky and the Ground at the launch of the debut novel by newly arrived Wexford author Cat Hogan.
‘It was absolutely bonkers. There were 200 people in the room. Everyone came out to support me. The Book Centre ran out of books and had to re-stock’, said Cat, who had attended the Dublin launch in the Gutter bookshop in Temple Bar the night before.
‘ They All Fall Down’, a psychological thriller exploring the thin line between love and obsession, was published by Poolbeg Press, which has given the Ballycogley native a two-book deal.
Cat worked in the hotel business in Wexford for many years and gave up her part-time job in Whites Hotel to write full-time at the end of 2014, after attending the Opera Festival launch in the Spiegeltent of Blood Red Turns Dollar Green by Paul O’Brien.
Billy Roche and Eoin Colfer were on a writers panel at the event along with LA screenwriter Paul Guay. There and then, Cat, who had completed a creative writing course with Carmel Harrington in the Arts Centre a year earlier, decided she wanted to join the ‘Boys’ Club’ of Wexford writers including Roche, Colfer, John Banville, Colm Tóibín and Peter Murphy.
‘I went straight from work and I was there in my polyester uniform listening to them and I decided, this is what I want to do,’ said the former Kilmore National School and Bridgetown Vocational College student, who has a degree in business studies and hospitality management from Galway Mayo Institute of Technology and a law degree from Carlow IT. Over the years, she has worked in the Ferrycarrig Hotel, the Talbot Hotel and The Yard. She runs a self-employed enterprise writing plans, website content and marketing material for businesses.
The life-long bookworm and people watcher wrote the novel in six months, finishing it at the end of June. She had an agent by August and was offered a book deal by Poolbeg in November.
When we spoke last week, she had her sights set on the Irish Times Bestsellers List, which was due to be published on Sunday. She is currently working on the second book – ‘a dark tale of death, destruction and misery’, she says – while looking after her sons Joey (11) and Art (2). She and her musician partner Dave live in Wexford town.
She had a speech prepared for the Wexford launch but became uncharacteristically nervous in front of the home-town crowd and edited it on her feet. ‘Hearing my name mentioned in the same sentence as Eoin Colfer name brought it home to me. It was just too much. I’m now in the big boys’ club. To be welcomed by them is mind-blowing in a way,’ said Cat. Among the attendance were her mother Marguerite (Mag), her brother Paraic who travelled from Dublin, sister Fidelma who came from Portlaoise and younger sister Sarah, a duty manager in Ferrycarrig swimming pool. Her late dad Pat, who died in 2001 worked at sea all his life, starting out with the Merchant Navy in 1964 before joining the Commissioner for Irish Lights. ‘ They All Fall Down’ is set in a Wexford fishing village. Cat said it feels great to be flying the flag for Wexford female writers and intends to continue ‘dreaming big’ in the hope that Hollywood comes knocking on her door. ‘Who doesn’t want their book to be made into a blockbuster? There’ll be one condition though. It will have to be made in Wexford,’ she said.