The Sunday Session with Francesca RudkinWhitcoulls Recommends: See How They Fall and Careless People
See How They Fall by Rachel Paris. The uber-rich Turner family operate a luxury goods empire from Sydney, where their venal self interest knows no bounds. When their patriarch dies, the heirs call a meeting where things go terribly wrong and their cocooned world becomes the subject of a major police enquiry. Skye married into this money but as things unfold, finds she can’t believe what they’re capable of. This is truly a world you want no part of, but as the 1 percenters increasingly rule over us, it’s a staggering insight into how some of them might have got there.
Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams. Sarah is a New Zealander who spent seven years working at Facebook/Meta – a job she entered with high ideals, believing Facebook would be a force for good. What she found, though, was a company where revenue was everything, whose leaders got away with terrible behaviour and who were aware of the disastrous aspects of many of its policies but chose to do nothing. The absence of any kind of moral compass is staggering.
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You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin from News TALKSEDB.
And Joe McKenzie joins us. Now, good morning, good morning. You've got a couple of fabulous books for us this morning, great reads, both by New Zealand authors.
I know, isn't that great?
Yeah?
Yeah. The first one is called See How They Fall by Rachel Parris, who's an Auckland lawyer I believe, who's also managed to turn out this terrifically entertaining book set in Sydney. And I'm told that she said the reason for setting it there was because there aren't any really ghastly wealthy families in New Zealand, and this lot really are. So they're Australian.
She does toxic rich people very well.
She doesn't. Yes. So the Turner family run a luxury goods empire and they're absolutely rolling in it. And when the patriarch suddenly dies, the heirs call a meeting, and it's not just any meeting. They go off to a fabulous luxury resort for this thing, and while they're there, something really horrible happens and they suddenly find that this nicely cushioned world that they live in is being invaded by the police who are mounting an inquiry. And one of the characters is Skuy, who married into all this money, but she simply can't believe what they're capable of. And as a result of that meeting, her sister in law is dead, her daughter is critically ill in ICU, and her husband is trying to have her declared insane. You wouldn't want to have anything to do with any of these people, but as we all know, the one percenters are increasingly in charge, and I reckon this is a good insight into how some of them got there.
I was sent this book at summer time and I got a little sneak read of it and I started it and I literally didn't stop. Yah, you don't put it down. You had to finish it. And then it went around the whole family and everyone was exactly the same. Tell Me a little Bit about Careless People by Sarah Wynn Williams.
So, as you said at the start, is also a local. She's a trained lawyer who became a diplomat. She worked at the un I think she was involved in environmental policy, and she gave all that up when she realized that after all of the policy meetings and the boring stuff that they was ending their life doing at the un the movie Finding Nemo had more impact on the environment than anything that they were doing. And she was aware of Facebook and really liked the possibilities of it, particularly after the christ Church earthquake when her family were affected by it, and she could see that it became such an incredible community tool for people to connect and offer assistance and keep each other going in the wake of something awful like that. So she went knocking on their door and said, please give me a job, and they said no, no, no, no, And eventually, after quite a long time, they did, and she became their director of Global Policy and had quite a reach around the world. She ended up being there for seven years, but she had the scales taken from her eyes reasonably quickly as she realized that this was all about money for these people and their lifestyles and their handle on power. And when it became clear that, for instance, the advertisers on the platform were able to target very vulnerable young people, or that the platform could be used in all sorts of pretty nefarious ways, she tried to make change, which was resisted at every level, and in the end she left. I loved this book. I believed every word. I've always believed. I don't use Facebook. I've always believed that there's something fundamentally scary about it, and she's really explained.
It for me. And she writes so well. She writes with humor, and she tells a good yarn. That's what I mean.
And the great irony, of course, is that when the book was suddenly published, because the announcement of the book coming was only a few days prior to its actual release Meta, which of course is Facebook's new parent name, they took action to stop her promoting it or speaking about it publicly in any way. And of course these guys put themselves up as the guardians of free speech, and.
It ended up at the top of the New York Best Signs. So did there we go? That's what happens. Yes, though we had her all booked one to talk to her, and we're hoping that at some point we will be able to catch up with her and she will be able to speak about the book. Look, these are two fabulous yarns. Of course, the Easter holidays are coming. If you've got a chance to take a break. Two really good options for you. I recommend it that both of us absolutely see how they fall by Rachel Paris and Careless People by Sarah Williams. Talk next week, John.
See you then.
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen live to News Talks it'd be from nine am Sunday, or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
