The Girl on the Train

Summary (from the publisher): Every day the same: Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

Until today: And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

 

Review: Rachel's life is spinning out of control. Nearly the only constant is her daily commute into London, where she views a couple breakfasting on their deck and imagines their happy life, not unlike the life she used to live with her ex-husband Tom just a few doors down. She refers to the couple as Jess and Jason and looks forward to her daily glimpse into their happy world. Until the day she witnesses something that alerts her that this is perhaps not the happy couple she imagined. Soon, news reports prompt Rachel to approach the police with what she saw. Yet she is deemed an unreliable witness. What did Rachel really see? What really happened on Blenheim Road?

 

It's difficult to fully describe or discuss this novel without revealing spoilers, yet I can say that there is a scarcely a likeable character in the whole of this novel. Each character is at times unreliable, untrustworthy, shady, violent, unfaithful, or suspect. Although told in alternating chapters, Rachel is the primary narrator. Yet by her own omission, Rachel says that "'I don't remember things,' I said, 'I black out and I can't remember where I've been or what I've done.'" Rachel defies the admonishments of the police, has an unhealthy obsession with her ex, lies repeatedly to her roommate - and yet her word, her insight into the unfolding mystery is the best view the reader has into this world. Despite, or perhaps because of, how distasteful and sordid this story is, the reader is sucked deeper and deeper into the tale.

 

A central image throughout the novel is the train as it rushes past the suburban houses of Blenheim Road. The train is what gives Rachel a glimpse into the lives of others: "I watch theses houses roll past me like a tracking shot in a film. I see them as others do not, even their owners probably don't see them from this perspective." The train also provides a means of flight, of arrival and departure, of continuity and stability for Rachel as her life disintegrates around her. The sound of the train punctuates the novel, obscuring dialogue as it roars past, carrying anonymous eyes just for the briefest of moments. This violent, screeching hunk of metal is the backdrop of the houses where the main events of the novel take place but also provides the soundtrack and the relentless momentum of the novel to its violent conclusion.  This roaring, constant presence provides a tempo and a pulse to the ever quickening pace of the novel.

 

This novel has been, perhaps unfairly, compared to Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Although both are suspenseful thrillers surrounding the disappearance of a young married woman, this novel was infinitely more plausible and held my attention throughout. Hawkins has deftly woven a suspenseful tale that kept me guessing and had me flying through its pages to uncover the secrets of this book. Although the ending, and the behavior of some of the key players in the conclusion, did seem somewhat too tidy, Hawkins has a strong sense of how to play on the unreliability of her characters for the most dramatic effect.

 

Stars: 4