By now, you’re more than aware about Girl on the Train. Even if you managed to get this far without reading the book (how?) you’ve probably made plans to see the Emily Blunt-starring film.
The story starts off like this; Rachel, a down and out thirty-something develops something of an obsession with the glamorous couple that live in a house she passes every day on her commuter train. To her, their lives represent everything hers isn’t – filled with love, affluent and exciting. Rachel, for her part, is an alcoholic, struggling to get over her failed marriage and taking a nosedive in her job. So, when Rachel thinks she’s sees something sinister happening in the house she obsesses over, no-one believes her.
But, where did Paula Hawkins, the writer of Girl On The Train, get her idea from? Was it, as proved to be sort of true with previous bestselling crime novel Gone Girl, based on truth?
Thankfully, no. But there are things in Paula’s real life that can seen reflected in the novel.
For starters, Megan (one-half of the glamorous couple) and her reluctance to have children. Hawkins herself decided long ago she wasn’t into the idea. Not that that stopped people from asking about it. Just as they do to Megan in the book. ‘Oh, when are you going to start?’ She says people said to her in an interview with The Guardian. ‘I’m sure 99% of that is well meaning but it doesn’t make it less uncomfortable. I did get an awful lot of “Oh, you’ll change your mind,” to which my reaction was, “How is it that you know my mind better than I do?” I’ve been living with it for a long time.’
As for the concept of getting obsessed with people you come across every day through travel, Paula herself once had a similar journey to Rachel's. ‘ I commuted into the centre of London every day, and I used to sit on the train.’ She told Time Magazine in 2015. ‘For parts of the journey I would go quite close to people’s homes, and I always liked that — being able to see inside people’s houses and imagining what those people were like. And then I was sort of idly wondering what one would do if one saw something shocking. If you saw, I don’t know, an act of violence or something. Would you tell anyone? Would you be able to actually do anything about it?’
Unlike Rachel though, Hawkins knew where to stop. ‘You feel like you’ve made a connection with these people. You see their houses or maybe a painting on their wall that you like and think, “Oh that’s nice. I’d probably like those people.”’ She said in the same interview. ‘And then you have to stop yourself and think, “You don’t know them. You’re just imagining.”’
Like this? Then you might also be interested in:
Girl On The Train Actress Rebecca Ferguson: 'I Was Thinking Oh God What Have I Done?!'
Hangover Cures And US Versus UK, We Speak To Emily Blunt About Girl On The Train
Should Girl On The Train Really Be Set In The US Rather Than The UK?
Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.