The Girl on the Train author Paula Hawkins turns to the mysterious art world in latest thriller
The British author discussed her new novel The Blue Hour on Bookends with Mattea Roach
At the Tate Modern in London sits a unique sculpture by the famous artist Vanessa Chapman. It's made up of all kinds of materials — wood, ceramic, wire, gold leaf, deer bone — all enclosed in a glass box.
But when a forensic anthropologist happens upon the piece, he's convinced that the bone in the sculpture is actually human, sending the exhibit's curator into a frenzy.
The thrilling mystery of the bone — and the dark look into the art world that surrounds it — is the story told in British author Paula Hawkins' latest novel, The Blue Hour.
"It does seem to me that it is very rich territory for fiction because it's quite opaque, the art world," said Hawkins on Bookends with Mattea Roach. "It's mysterious in some ways that a lot of us don't really understand how it all works."
"Artists seem quite glamorous figures, quite mysterious figures themselves. But there's also so much scope for conflict, over things like a legacy about who gets to interpret what an artist's work means after they're gone, even while they're still around."
The Blue Hour plays into the tension of legacy, especially because Vanessa, the artist of the sculpture, died of cancer before the novel begins. Yet, readers are privy to her inner thoughts through a series of diary entries.
"I did want you to be able to hear her voice and to get a real sense of who she was," said Hawkins.
In her journals, Vanessa grapples with the challenges of being an artist in the public eye. She struggles with the way the media portrays her and her art. She also writes about the tumultuous relationship with her notoriously unfaithful husband, who mysteriously disappeared.
"[The journalists] complain about her being difficult and spiky and prickly because she doesn't smile or make nice all the time. And there's more of a focus on that than on actually the work itself," said Hawkins.
A desire to escape
This prompts her to live a life of recluse and move into a house on the remote Scottish island Eris, which not only has a remarkable landscape for her art, but gives her the opportunity to escape and gain a sense of freedom from the demands and expectations of others.
"It's something I can slightly identify with and I think it's a legitimate choice, but people don't necessarily respond to that voice all that well all the time," said Hawkins.
What Hawkins is referring to is perhaps the overwhelming expectations that surrounded her after her breakout novel, the 2015 psychological thriller The Girl on the Train, sold over 23 million copies worldwide and was adapted into a major movie starring Emily Blunt.
The Girl on the Train is about a woman named Rachel who takes the commuter train every day. When the train stops at the signal in a suburban area, she watches the same couple having breakfast on their patio and starts to feel like she knows them. When she sees something surprising, she can't stay quiet — but as she becomes more and more involved in the investigation, she starts to wonder whether she's done more harm than good.
"I didn't for a moment ever think I would top the commercial success of The Girl on the Train," said Hawkins. "But I did feel all eyes on me. And that made writing the next novel really quite difficult."
The Blue Hour is the second thriller Hawkins has written after The Girl on the Train — but before she made the switch in genres, she actually wrote four romantic comedy novels under a pen name.
"I never really felt comfortable in that genre," she said. "I knew the moment I started writing [The Girl on the Train] that it was a much better fit for me, writing these much darker, bleaker storylines."
Writing suspenseful setting
Part of what gives The Blue Hour that eerie, suspenseful feeling that's characteristic of Hawkins' writing is the setting of Eris island.
In fact, Hawkins knew she wanted to set her third thriller on an isolated island before anything else.
In 2017, she visited Brittany in France and was walking a lot on the coast. There, she discovered many tiny islands that you can walk to when the tide is out, but become proper islands when the tide is in.
"I remember walking out there and seeing one of these little islands that just had a single house on it," said Hawkins. It gave her the feeling of the hair standing up on the back of her neck and because of that, she loved the idea of setting a novel in a similar place.
"There's a kind of built-in suspense around it because there's always that the tide is coming in or the tide is going out."
I think that obviously you want the people you love close to you, but sometimes you also want to be free of them.- Paula Hawkins
That, coupled with the isolation of the island, makes for a page-turning story — not just because of the crime aspect, but because of the examination of the constant push and pull of society's expectations.
"There's a lot about the tension between needing to be part of a community and wanting to be free of it, and that's that constant like push and pull that she feels that so many people feel."
"I think that obviously you want the people you love close to you, but sometimes you also want to be free of them."
This interview was produced by Liv Pasquarelli.
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