Tense, amnesiac reading: "The Girl on the Train" by Paula Hawkins

The Girl on the Train is the first of the summer reading recommendations from the estimable Paola Buonadonna, the one she described as a "fun read". I had already noticed the book in the shops - how not to? - but neither had I quite realised its hit-of-the-summer status, nor do I think I would have actually bought it without Paola's testimony. So thanks, Paola. 

Of course, The Girl on the Train is the thriller of the moment, doubtless being read on a thousand commuter journeys every day. Deservedly so. Hawkins has served up a clever, perfectly paced mystery-thriller which pleases above all for the strength of its central character, the deeply unreliable Rachel Watson. 

Rachel is the "girl on the train" (the rather inaccurate use of "girl", one suspects, being chosen precisely to invite comparison with another wildly successful unreliable narrator story, Gone Girl, a not entirely inappropriate comparison), who rumbles into London from the suburbs every day. Her trip, thanks to a reliably unreliable section of London commuter rail network gives her the opportunity to gaze wistfully at the trackside houses en route, notably one, inhabited by a young couple she dubs Jess and Jason, for whom she imagines an idyllic existence of domestic bliss. Soon we discover that this vision contrasts markedly with her own life. She is a recent divorcee, from the wonderful, but not ever-patient, Tom, with whom she once lived in a house also visible from the train just a few doors down from Jess and Jason. Tom is still in this house, now with a new wife, Anna (who "stole" Tom) and their brand new baby, Evie. We are soon given grounds to understand Tom, Rachel is erratic and alcoholic, given to extreme outrageous behaviour, often in the direction of pathetically harassing Tom and Anna. Moreover, even her daily commute is a sham, she having lost her job months before, the pretence maintained for the sake of appearances towards her (almost) ever-patient landlady/flatmate Cathy, to somehow appease the world in general and, almost certainly, simply to have the opportunity fleetingly to observe the lives of Jess and Jason, Tom and Anna.

The story picks up, as the cover blurb will tell you, when Rachel sees something from the train which wrecks her view of Jess and Jason's domestic idyll, and which could have an important bearing on a police investigation into the subsequent disappearance of Jess (in reality called Megan, her husband being Scott).


The excellence of Hawkins tale - of the mystery of Megan's disappearance, of the connections and interactions between Tom and Anna, Megan and Scott, and Rachel herself - lies in the manner of its telling. The story is told in asymmetrical alternation by Rachel, Anna and Megan, in chapters which are frequently out of sync on the timeline but which drip feed us with the information we need to piece together what is really going on and occasionally throw in a plot-twisting revelation. All three narrators are neurotic, flawed, self absorbed characters, full of resentments, grudges, and a combination of self-pity and self justification (mind you, the men, as seen by the women, fare no better: brooding, sulking, lying, cheating, with a barely suppressed streak of violence, for all that their women often see them as protective and sexy - doubtless someone will at some point examine the gender politics of this book more closely). 

Paula Hawkins
(Great Guardian interview here)

However, it is the character of Rachel which is the real genius of this book.  She is exasperating, weak, drunk, irrational, obsessive. We sympathise with flatmate Cathy, when she finally gives her her marching orders, we can only imagine the hell Tom went through trying to placate and share a life with this crazy woman, we completely get why the police write her off as a rubbernecker and "unreliable witness". Rachel is an accident waiting to happen, completely off the rails (as it were), we don't ever quite know whether to believe her, but she does have a kind of bloody-minded tenaciousness (aka irrational obsessiveness) which means she can't quite ever let go and worries away at the case, poking her nose into other people's affairs, wildly lying to get close to the protagonists, worming her way into their story, which, yes, turns out to be her story too. She doesn't have an easy time of it, but her involvement opens things up and drives the plot to its - yes, surprising - denouement.

I shan't spoil with more detail, but let's just say this is a great, suspenseful, fun read. It is very skilfully crafted and certainly belongs up there on the bestseller shelf with Gone Girl, of which it is a kind of worthy British equivalent (smaller houses, more alcohol, fewer guns - actually no guns - more understatement). Watch out for the film (DreamWorks already have an option), but read the book first if you fancy something unputdownable for the beach.

(PS. I am now up to date with the books I am reading, and the current one has 850 odd pages, so I am glad to say the rate of appearance of these reviews will now moderate a little.)