The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

[no podcast this week]

Here’s my book review of The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins.

I don’t often review recent releases. But there was such a buzz about The Girl on the Train, I couldn’t help myself. Especially since, after I’d downloaded the ebook sample, that Buy Now button was burning a hole in my digital wallet.

(The book has been out for months, so maybe, given the nanosecond pace of social media, it’s a classic by now?)

Yes, I was engrossed. But before you rush out to the e-store, be warned.

Right off, this is a book for and about women. The two male main characters – both thirty-something husbands – are strapping hunks of man-flesh. They exude charm and flash winning smiles. And they are both abusers. Several walk-on male characters are nicer, sort of metrosexual candidates. But one has a drug habit, another is a drunk, and the third is a spineless shrink.

The wives and ex-wives are smart but vulnerable, emotional sponges thirsty for guy-sweat. They spend a lot of their emotional energy in cat-fights with each other.

Okay, here’s the gist of it. The Girl on the Train is a chilling psychological drama centered – not on a love triangle, but a pentagon – or is it a hexagon? Anyway, the permutations and combinations don’t quite include the entire neighborhood.

Main character Rachel is recently divorced from Tom, who seems like a nice guy who just couldn’t put up with her drinking habit. (She had her reasons.) He’s now married to Anna and they have a new baby. The couple live in a the same bungalow where Tom and Rachel once thought they were happy. A few doors down, Scott and Megan seem like childless lovebirds. Megan occasionally babysits for Anna.

Although it’s been a while since the breakup, Rachel can’t help spying on her old house from the commuter train she takes to work in London every day. She occasionally catches sight of Megan and Scott lounging on the porch of their cookie-cutter cottage. She doesn’t know them well, but she develops a fantasy about their perfect relationship. It’s the relationship Rachel thought she had with Tom, a love now presumably lost.

It turns out that Rachel is more than casually curious about Tom and Anna. Rachel is a stalker. She phones him at all hours, she leaves notes at the house, and she wanders the neighborhood as she stares at the front door.

One night when she’s there, neighbor Megan goes missing.

A problem is – and it’s huge – when Rachel has been drinking she’s prone to mental blackouts. There are whole chunks of time – from minutes to hours – for which she has no memory. So combined with her guilt and self-loathing over her failed marriage, Rachel begins to wonder whether she’s been bad. Maybe really, really bad?

Like, maybe, did she somehow hurt perfect-housewife Megan? And what happened to Megan, anyway? Did she run off with a lover, or will they find her body in a ditch?

That’s as far as I’ll go. No more spoilers. But I’m just priming the pump. This is a big book, and, by turns, Rachel, Anna, and Megan tell their first-person stories.

Debut novelist Paula Hawkins knows her craft. At its basis, The Girl on the Train is an ingeniously twisted  mystery. It’s a woman-jeopardy plot with multiple victims. But, be warned, there are occasional bouts of intense domestic violence.

You might wonder whether this bestseller will be a movie, and apparently it will. DreamWorks has it in pre-production with Tate Taylor (The Help) to direct. Emily Blunt has been cast in the title role of Rachel. In the book she’s described as pudgy and somewhat homely. I guess Hollywood (UK office?) thought that was a bad idea. I doubt if the svelte Ms. Blunt will be donning a fat-suit or actually putting on weight for this role. Perhaps a touch less makeup, dear?

As I say, this is a big book, and what probably won’t make it to script or screen are Rachel’s agonizing internal monologues.

But what you will see, I can predict, is every one of those wife-battering fights.

Even more titillating to movie audiences than a good wartime firefight with semiautomatic weapons is to see some sweaty guy slapping his hot babe around.

"The Goldfinch" by Donna Tartt

Boychik Lit Book Reviews - No. 14

Here’s my book review of The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.

This is a story about art theft and romantic obsession. Main character Theodore Decker is very much the boychik – a young man with more ambition than brains. So it’s a coming-of-age story, as well, full of his personal introspection and psychological turmoil.

Be warned – plot spoilers ahead.

Young Theo and his mother duck into a New York museum in the rain and are caught in a terrorist bomb blast. His mother is killed, but he is one of the few survivors. Another fatality is a cultured old man named Welty, who was at the museum with his pretty young ward Pippa. She’s close to Theo’s age and also survives, but with some debilitating injuries. She will become the unrequited love of his life. Before Welty expires next to Theo in the rubble, he gives him his signet ring and tells him to take this small painting – The Goldfinch – a Dutch Master picture of a bird chained to its perch. Theo takes on the mission to keep the painting safe.

That’s as much of the story as I’ll give away. There’s a lot more – this is a big book. The novel owes a lot to Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past and Dostoevsky’s The Idiot, and it mentions both. The underlying philosophical questions are broad and deep: Why is there evil in the world? What is the point of living? And what do we owe to history? to future generations?

A literary agent told me that author Donna Tartt refuses to be edited. Like I say, it’s a long book. It topped the bestseller lists for a while, and clearly many of her readers hoped it would be worth the time invested.

As for me, I applaud its ambitions, but I do think less would have been more.

For Boychik Lit, I’m Gerald Everett Jones. My new humorous novels are Mr. Ballpoint and Christmas Karma. And you can catch these podcast book reviews on BoychikLit.com.

Masonic Joke: The 'Lost Symbol' Is at Target

The "lost symbol" in Dan Brown's big bestseller of the same name is a geometric shape called a circumpunct. Which turns out to be the logo of Target Stores. Creeeeeepy!

I bet Manny, Mo, and Jack are in on it, too!*

Many readers probably suspected that The Lost Symbol would be an exposé about the Masons in much the same way that The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons revealed occult lore embedded in the history of the Catholic church. But this latest book from the master of page-turners is neither anti-Masonic nor anti-Catholic. It is, at its core, a New Age manifesto. And it unashamedly points to Freemasonry as the paradigm for a contemporary mindset that embraces all religions and challenges human beings to build a society where tolerance is the order of the day.

(The origins of Masonry had a lot to do with opposing the Pope and European royalty.)

What is this New Age mindset? Well, what is old, even ancient, is new again. Modern Noetic science, which figures strongly in the plot, is based on the Neoplatonic belief that thoughts are things and can manifest in reality (same theme as The Secret, also found in John 1:1). You'll find the notion that humans are co-creators with God (Brown quotes the Bible verse "Know ye not that ye are gods?") And it will come as good news that the Apocalypse of Revelation will be a peaceful explosion of human consciousness rather than nuclear weaponry (see also The Twelve).

Despite Brown's crowd-pleasing prowess, I doubt if he's exploiting New Age philosophy just to pander to popular taste. He seems to believe it all, along with a heartfelt patriotism that sees the American experiment much as the Founding Fathers did, as an imperfect work in progress on a worthy Utopian ideal.

In fact, in retrospect, it almost seems as though the Da Vinci/Angels books built a fan base to which he can now overtly deliver a message that's been his subtext all along.

It's not a flawless book, in my humble opinion. But he's selling about a million times more copies than my Rollo Hemphill novels, so who am I to throw rocks? I get bored with USA Today-style, seventh-grade-reading-level prose -- except when I'm riveted, turning pages in my zeal to find out what happens next, which is most of the time.

And his dialogue is often plainly expository and not the least dramatic, rather like those young Greek stooges questioning Socrates. I don't recall if any of the characters actually says to Langdon, "Tell me more," but they are often content to toss out short queries and then listen to him lecture (okay, interestingly) for paragraphs.

I challenge you to read this without thinking of John Malkovich as the big Decorated Man and Linda Hunt as Sato. I have my ideas about the inevitable casting of other characters, but the speech patterns of these two just seem so similar to their distinctive characterizations in previous movie roles.

And, please, somebody tell me why no one thinks to take a flashlight into Pod 5!



*Founders of the Pep Boys, a chain of automobile parts stores.