Obsession, jealousy and greed in a coastal Wexford village
AT some point in our lives we will all meet a person who seems too good to be true, too sweet to be wholesome. A person who immediately arouses our suspicions, sets alarm bells ringing. A person who manages to charm everyone, someone who a bad word cannot be said about.
Scott Carluccio Randall is one such person. Affluent, influential, irresistably handsome, he is the son of a legendary opera singer, the heir to a fortune, a mover and a groover in Dublin’s high-society.
He is also a sociopath, a dangerous, violent individual who will stop at nothing to get what he wants.
They All Fall Down is Wexford woman Cat Hogan’s debut novel and was published in 2016 by Poolbeg Press. Set in a fictional coastal town in Wexford, it follows the lives of a group of thirty-somethings as they eke out an existence in what is very much a working-class community.
And then into that community arrives the aforementioned Scott.
He is the best friend of Andy, an unassuming fisherman, a loyal, gentle soul who is still mourning the death of his wife Sharon by suspected suicide.
While he waits to embark on a round-the-world trip, save enough money to fulfil this once-in-alifetime adventure, Andy finds himself sharing a house with Jen and her son Danny.
A local girl, a waitress, Jen is one of those people who’s just trying to get by, living her life on autopilot, focusing on her son, his welfare and ensuring he has the best upbringing possible.
But the arrival of Andy and in turn, Scott, turns this simplest of lives upside down. On the one hand Jen finds love, on the she is exposed to a hatred and an enmity which threatens not just her own life but that of her son too.
A dark, psychological thriller, They All Fall Down is the first of Hogan’s Scott Carluccio Randall novels, it’s a fast-paced tale of obsession, jealously and greed, set against the backdrop of life in a sleepy Wexford village, the kind of place where nothing ever happens and no one really wants it to.
By combining the glitz and the glamour of the elite, with the fortunes of the more sedate Jen and Andy, inserting the psychotic, dangerous Scott into their humdrum world, the author plays on the concept of class and the inequalities which exist in Irish society.
And in this story, it is the rich and the powerful who repulse, the beautiful and beatific who disgust. Yet like all good villains, Scott is enchanting, he is dastardly, cunning and clever – the more wicked among you may even enjoy his constant scheming and plotting, his manic attempts to destroy everything in his path.
By contrast, Jen, Andy and their circle of friends are ordinary to a fault. As a single-mother in a lowpaid job, Jen’s life is in a constant state of flux. Her child’s father was never more than a good friend and any thoughts of romance are tempered by the scars on her chest and arms, the legacy of a childhood accident.
She is the heroine of the story, its conscience, the one voice of reason in an increasingly twisted tale. She is the only one who understands what Scott is really like - she and us, the readers.
While Andy and the rest of Jen’s friends remain blissfully unaware of Scott’s bad intentions, we are privvy to his excesses, his depravity, both past and present. We are also privvy to Jen’s concerns, her anguish as she repeatedly warns those she loves about the imminent dangers, the disasters hurtling towards them.
It’s a battle of good versus evil, privileged versus proletariat, the theory that riches, acclaim and diversion can never bring true happiness present throughout. And beneath it all, beneath the love, hate, violence, occasional drug-taking and bad language, is Wexford; its towns and villages, sights and sounds, sayings and phrases. The place where Cat Hogan’s talents were formed, where Scott, Andy and Jen wrestle for supremacy, and where the reader, whether local or international, is transported from first page to last.