Paula Hawkins–THE GIRL ON THE TRAIN
Posted in 6-2015 Reviews, England, Mystery, Thriller, Noir on Aug 2nd, 2015
The Girl on the Train, a debut thriller from England, features three women, one of whom becomes the victim of murder in this plot which has no heroes or heroines, no Superman or Batgirl or brilliant detective to come flying to the rescue. To involve the reader, the author has had to choose a different way to counteract the absence of a hero, and she does so here in a most ironic way – by creating three main female characters, all of whom are weak, dependent, and dealing with personal problems involving husbands and lovers, past and present. The reader’s involvement, stimulated throughout by a sense of pity for these damaged women, depends upon an empathy with their psychological problems and the flawed decisions they make while affected by their problems. Rachel, the main character who introduces the novel, connects them all, structurally, through her train rides from the rural station where she has a room to her job in London. As she commutes, the train passes the house in the town of Witby, where she lived for five years with her husband Tom, and where he continues to live with his current wife Anna and their child. Four houses down the road from Tom and Anna, live a couple whom Rachel has named Jess and Jason, people she has never met but whose lives, as seen from the train, seem idyllic in the fantasy world which Rachel would like to believe parallels her own life with ex-husband Tom.
