FICTION: CATHERINE HEANEYreviews Set In StoneBy Catherine Dunne Macmillan, 289pp. £12.99
CATHERINE DUNNE's novels have been praised in the past for their ability to transform the everyday lives of ordinary people into immensely readable and compelling fiction. So much so that they have made her an internationally bestselling author, in Italy in particular, where someone who could neverbe accused of leading a normal life – Silvio Berlusconi's estranged wife, Veronica Lario – quoted Dunne in 2007 to describe how she felt after yet another humiliation at the hands of the philandering Italian premier. "I ask if, like the Catherine Dunne character, I have to regard myself as 'half of nothing'," Lario said – surely the most bizarre bit of name-checking the author has received, but proof nonetheless of her gift for creating Everywoman characters to whom even a creature as rarified as Lario can relate.
Another such woman is the central figure in Dunne's seventh novel, Set in Stone, a story exploring the ramifications of dark secrets in a family's past. Lynda Graham is a 40something mother of two, living in an affluent Dublin suburb and married to her college sweetheart, decent, dependable Robert, a successful property developer (at least until recently). Lynda herself is an artist and garden designer, a sensible, sensitive woman, mindful of her own good fortune yet not immune to anxieties, especially about her children, and in particular her 19-year-old son, Ciarán. Adding to her creeping sense of unease is a darker shadow that hangs over the family, cast by her husband's estranged brother Danny, a sociopath who blames Lynda and Robert for his own troubled life.
The novel opens as an unnamed man surveys the Graham household through a camcorder, gathering footage to be delivered each day to the anonymous Wide Boy. From this point on, the story is largely told from Lynda’s viewpoint, reverting occasionally to that of the watcher, and Danny (who, we soon learn, is Wide Boy). While the latter two are engaged in a sinister and meticulously planned revenge strategy, life inside Lynda and Robert’s home is fraught with its own difficulties. As well as a series of menacing letters from Danny, and Robert’s struggling business, they must contend with Ciarán’s increasingly aggressive and reclusive behaviour. When he brings home a new friend, Jon, Lynda hopes that in spite of her reservations about the precocious young man, his charm will rub off on her son. But, inevitably, there is more to Jon than meets the eye.
With all these elements in place, Dunne sets the stage for a fast-moving drama that switches back and forth in time, through flashbacks, and takes several twists along the way. As always, it is the emotional lives of her characters that most interest the author, and she is at her best when delving into past events that have shaped their personalities. In one of the most moving passages in the book, she describes the circumstances of the family tragedy that underpins the two brothers’ estrangement, and its subsequent effect on Danny’s life: “Nothing that won’t heal in time, he thinks? He’ll see about that.” Similarly, in recounting a disturbing episode from Danny’s childhood, she touches on the notion of innate evil – an idea she returns to later in the novel, though never quite fully explores.
She is also a clear-eyed observer of the vagaries of the human heart, and through Lynda in particular, considers how emotions can influence a character’s actions: loneliness, infatuation, infidelity, maternal love, guilt – she chronicles them all with a combination of deep empathy and lucid matter-of-factness.
All the same – and this, surely, is what makes her novels so popular – Dunne manages to combine this emotional intelligence with an absorbing, cleverly woven plot. She builds up tension layer by insidious layer, as Danny and the watcher (another fine character with his own sad story) wage their campaign of psychological terror on the Grahams, and skilfully brings the various strands of her story together as the novel reaches its climax.
Not that Set In Stoneis without its shortcomings: there are moments when the action threatens to topple into melodrama and, more importantly, the credibility of the characters' actions is at times overstretched. It's hard to believe, for instance, that two responsible, hands-on parents would let an inscrutable young man such as Jon move into their home without even knowing his surname. And though the Dublin of the backdrop is familiar and well drawn, passing references to Anglo Irish Bank and the imploding property market seem almost superfluous, there purely to lend the story the cachet of currency. But quibble, quibble – Dunne's legions of fans should certainly enjoy this elegantly written page-turner, and its cautionary tale of betrayal and revenge may even give the soon-to-be ex-Mrs Berlusconi some new food for thought.
Catherine Heaney is a contributing editor to The Glossmagazine
