BelEdit Book Reviews
I loved Hailey’s The Silence Project. so I was thrilled to receive an ARC of her second novel, Scenes from a Tragedy. It proved to be very different, perhaps even better.
I need a moment here to talk about the author. It’s pretty damned impressive when an author can pull off a prize-winning, 5-star success as a début. Hailey not only follows up with a belter of a new novel, but it’s completely different to the first. This is no ‘riding on the wave of success with a weak, what-happened-next follow-up’ but an entirely fresh story. Hats off.
It’s easy to compare Scenes from a Tragedy with Killing Eve, and many reviewers have gone there. Easy, but lazy. The only commonality is that both revolve around a female psychopath.
A primer on psychopathy
It takes some time before the P word is mentioned in Scenes from a Tragedy. Many readers will quickly see that Izzy is a psychopath, but Carly takes a while to get there. While that might jar, I think it’s fair. I have known at least two psychopaths and seen for myself how reluctant people are to see the traits in someone they know. Partly of course because popular culture has taught us that all psychopaths are unstoppable serial killers. They aren’t. Most psychopaths don’t actually kill anyone. Scenes from a Tragedy is, among its other qualities, an excellent primer on what a psychopath is. Handy information to have if you happen to be living in the orbit of one of them. In short, they’re that highly manipulative, remorseless, devoid-of-empathy narcissist you know. Could be your boss or colleague, a family member… or a President or billionaire business leader. Yeah, you know the ones. A seductive but superficial charm is often part of the picture.
In this deliciously compulsive novel, our psycho is Izzy. The story begins when Izzy’s brother Danny and his copilot Luke die in a plane crash. Luke’s former fiancé, journalist Carly, decides to try to unravel what caused one of the pilots to deliberately crash the plane into a mountain. The narrative consists mainly of Carly’s accounts of her interviews with Danny’s sister and his wife, Grace.
As their stories unfold, the depth of Izzy’s perfidy is gradually revealed.
Reading Scenes from a Tragedy reminded me of how ill-equipped ordinary people are to deal with the narcissists and full-on psychopaths in their lives. Anyone graced with a normal dose of empathy finds it hard to get their head around that ultimate question: ‘But how could they do that?’, whether ‘that’ is their cruelty, or lying, or stealing, or refusal to accept responsibility for their actions, or whatever cold-hearted self-serving thing they have done.
It’s a hard question to answer. We may have sufficient empathy to make us want to treat other human beings comparatively decently but just not enough empathy or insight to understand a psycho. It’s a gulf that divides humans from non-humans. It’s easier to understand a wild animal than a psychopath. This inability to understand means that mostly we don’t see the psycho. Even if we see beyond the charm or social façade, even if we are unnerved and disturbed by the something that’s just ‘off’, we twist ourselves into knots trying to understand the incomprehensible behaviour, trying to apply a vision of normal human behaviour built on our own value systems to the actions of someone who exists entirely outside those systems. Trying to understand the lizard in a skin suit.
[It also strikes me that in reading The Silence Project, beguiled by all that I was reading into the mysterious character Rachel of Chalkham, founder of the Community, I may have underestimated her sheer narcissism. Maybe Hailey’s two novels have more in common than would appear.]
In addition to all of this, Scenes from a Tragedy is worth reading, even if you’re not utterly fascinated by psychopaths. It has a cast of well-drawn characters – both likeable and nasty – strong writing and great pacing. The way it’s structured, delivering the story from different perspectives, but filtered through Carly, adds depth and tension to the narrative. All in all, it’s a downright good read.
My thanks to the publisher, author and Netgalley for providing an ARC. All my reviews are 100% honest and unbiased, regardless of how I acquire the book.
Also recommended: The Silence Project – Carole Hailey
You might also enjoy: A Good Father – Catherine Talbot
Meanwhile, here’s an index of all my reviews.