The Blackout Memories
The Girl on the Train novel by author Paula Hawkins published 13 of January 2015. The novel was No 1 on The New York Times Fiction Best Sellers of 2015 list and remained in the top position for 13 consecutive weeks. Paula Hawkins is a British author best known for her novel The Girl on The Train which was adopted later in 2016 into a movie that was directed by Tate Taylor. The novel begins with a lady name Rachel which uses the train every day to head towards London to her job and the same train to get back to the house where she's living with her friend which she knows back from college. Rachel is the main character of the novel which the novel sequences of events are about her life and how it turns upside down since she separated from her ex-husband Tom who got married to his mistress which he was cheating with on Rachel and had babe Eva with her and Rachel addiction to alcohol as well.
The novel begins with Rachel on the train passing by her old house where she and Tom used to live while they were married and occupied now by Tom and Anna with their babe Eva. staring into the neighbor's house next to Toms house, Rachel feeling so despaired, lonely and jealous of the way Megan and Scott living happily and the way Scott treats her always the balcony of their house which she keeps watching every day from the train. Rachel alcohol addiction began when she was married to Tom when they failed to have babe together it's then when she started drinking with none stop which caused her memory blackout every day and made Tom cheats on her with Anna and then get divorced. Rachel is soft and kind lady with broken heart blaming herself for everything happened between her and her Ex-husband because of the lies he used to tell her every morning after her blackout about how she was aggressive to him and others as well as making him feel shameful in front of others because of her drinking addiction, which she believed and continue doing because of her love to him even after everything. Rachel used to call Tom late at nights after too much alcohol she even went to his house and picked up the baby while Anna was napping which Anna consider it as harassment and wanted to report what happened to the police and her phone calls. One particularly night of drinking she decides to talk to her ex-husband in person so she took the train to their stop and the blackout happened and wake up next day in her bed with blood on her head and bruises covering her arm and back and she remembers nothing of the evening's events when she wakes the next morning 'Something is wrong,' she said. 'For a second, I feel as though I'm falling, as though the bed has disappeared from beneath my body. Last night. Something happened. The breath comes sharply into my lungs and I sit up, too quickly, heart racing, head throbbing.'. It's the same night that Megan went missing when she decides to meet her ex. She knew about it when she came home next day and found two detectives inside the house waiting for her for questioning her about the Friday night which remembers nothing of it because Tom and Anna reported that Rachel was in the area last night and came to their door, drunk when she replied that she was there to meet her ex-husband. Rachel miserable life start to change that day she even decided to deal with her growing addiction to alcohol and her frequent memory lapses because she starts scares of the blackouts that happen to her and thinking that she might kill Megan because of what Tom used to tell her about how aggressive she becomes when she is drunk 'Tom bought me a book about it. Not very romantic, but he was tired of listening to me tell him how sorry I was in the morning when I didn't even know what I was sorry for. I think he wanted me to see the damage I was doing, the kind of things I might be capable of.' Rachel said. Rachel told detective Gaskill about having seen Megan with another man, she also emailed Scott who is under suspicion in the disappearance of his wife to tell him about sawing his wife kissing another man on their balcony that day hoping that she would be helping him to get the things together and gets him away of the police suspicion.
Rechal used to think that she is a week but apparently Megan case had wake her and made her notice that she isn't and that Tom might know a lot but lying to her. All of these events following each other made Rachel's profoundly messy life turn into totally another life by going to alcohol addiction meeting as well as seeing Dr Kamel Megan's psychologist even though she didn't admit to herself that she is there searching for help for her lost memories but it's all was helping her to get back into herself that kind smart who's hard working and looking to live happily and peacefully. This changes lead her to remember a lot of her life and a lot of blackouts which let her knows that Tom was lying to her always and she has nothing to do about many things especially him losing his job but the important one was from the night Megan went missing when Tom saw her and hit her in the tunnel and then drove away with Megan who was there and her body was found later. Tom was the killer and Rachal tried to warn Anna who was already acknowledge by Toms affair with Megan and that's when Tom saw them and tried to killed Rachal as well as blaming her for Megan's death but this time it didn't go well for him as he was assuming that Rachal is still the same weak drunk girl he used to lie and cheated on and cause his death by Rechal when she self-defended herself.
In conclusion, what really makes The Girl on the Train, such an amazing novel is the author remarkable understanding of the limits of human knowledge and the degree to which memory and imagination can become confused. What I really liked about it was that though I thought I'd figured out who the evil-doer was at the very beginning, the author kept leading me astray so that I abandoned my first impression only to be surprised at the end when I found that I was right from the start!
