The Girl on the Train

So this is a classic thriller from 2016.

It's, like, around Gone Girl, Woman in the Window, Girl on the Train, like-

Yes

... that era of-

Although I've written a few contemporary novels, I mainly write historical novels set in recent history.

I'm not a medievalist, and I don't write books set in the Tudor period.

At present, I'm completing my 30th novel, and it's a third of three sagas which are set in Scotland in 1885.

And I should probably add that I'm both self-published, which I absolutely love, and also traditionally published, so I'm a hybrid.

Where did you grow up and were reading and writing always an important part of your life?

Yeah, always, particularly reading to begin with.

I was born in London, and I was tremendously lucky to have a mother who loved books, and she had loved the books she read as a child, most of which were out of print by the time I was born.

So she scoured all of the bookshops, went to all of the libraries, and I was able to read things like Children of the New Forest, Little Lord Fauntleroy, What Katie Did, All the books that a lot of children today were unlucky enough not to be able to read.

We must examine the trope of the unreliable witness and the pervasive power of the clinical gaze.

Here we find heavyweights like The Silent Patient by Alex Michaelides, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, and The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Let's break down the clinical aspect first with The Silent Patient.

Okay.

It changed the game.

It really did.

And finally, in this specific group, we have The Girl on the Train.

Rachel.

No.

Uh, second book being, third book being The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

Yeah, I was surprised to see that on there because I don't-

I really enjoyed that book

I still have your dresser from when you moved to Queensland.

[laughs]

I think that is probably when I got rid of my copy of The Girl on the Train.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The Girl on the Train, In the Window, At the Cabin, all of them.

So consider this conversation your curated shortcut to becoming a truly well-informed mystery aficionado.

I love that.

And many of you know Paula Hawkins.

She wrote Girl on the Train, one of my favorite authors.

And her blurb came in.

And she used the word violent.

It really has.

Ever since Gillian Flynn gave us Gone Girl and Paula Hawkins gave us The Girl on the Train, readers sit down with a thriller assuming the person talking to them is lying.

Because in those foundational texts, the unreliability is behavioral or psychological.

Right, like they're a bad person.

Yes.

So I suppose on Girl on the Train, hers was through alcoholism and blackouts and that sort of thing.

Um, uh, Amy doesn't have any of that.

Amy genuinely believes the way she sees the world is the absolute truth of the world, 'cause she has such a small world.