Hello, welcome Paula Hawkins, thank you very much for joining us today
to talk about your much-anticipated new novel, Into the Water
I'm going to start by asking a question that you've probably already been asked before
because it's a question that many authors who have a massive hit
are then asked with the second novel
Was there much pressure writing a book that would follow on from one that everyone seemed to have read?
Well, yes, a little.
Yeah obviously it makes it quite a daunting prospect,
when you've had a huge success, you know there's a big readership out there
that are waiting for the next thing. So yeah, that adds a certain level of pressure.
But I think that's not not necessarily a bad thing.
This book, as well as The Girl on the Train, deals with the idea of people's memories and with that being a major theme
with memories coming to the surface, what is it about that subject that interests you?
I'm fascinated by memory and by the way memory works,
and, yes, I talk about it in Into the Water in a very different way than I did from The Girl on the Train
In The Girl on the Train it's very straightforward. Her memory problem is about her drinking.
In this book I'm more looking at how we can mis-remember things from our childhood,
or we can tell stories about our lives that actually turn out to not be quite true
so we sort of create new - almost creating new memories for yourself
And I'm sure that lots of people have had this experience
where you'll be talking to somebody in your family about, you know,
a day you spent at the beach when you were a child
and then someone else will say 'No, it didn't happen like that.'
or 'You weren't even there, you've just seen a photograph of it'
and then it's so disconcerting because you could have sworn you remember this thing.
So that's the kind of, you know, shift in memory that I'm talking about in Into the Water.
The Girl on the Train was your debut thriller but you previously published a number of novels
under a different name which were very different in tone
I wondered how much of a different experience is it writing books that are much lighter
and where happier things happen to people rather than darker things
Well, I wasn't very good at the happy side of things
so this is why I think I moved to writing psychological suspense
Because my previous romantic comedy novels
kept getting darker and darker and more and more terrible things kept happening to everyone.
That's just what I'm more interested in.
I do tragedy better than I do comedy
so actually writing about miserable subjects is much more my cup of tea.
I was interested that Into the Water actually, to some extent, reminded me of your 2013 novel, The Reunion,
which was published under Amy Silver
where it's a group of people with, kind of like, collective secrets
that very quickly start to rise to the surface and in a very kind of claustrophobic environment as well.
(particularly the town in Into the Water)
I was wondering if spending all that time in a claustrophobic environment in your head
with all these secrets ever gets a bit much when you're trying to think of all the different motives?
Well I quite enjoy immersing myself in that sort of thing
It's a complex book in that, as you say, there are lots of characters and lots of secrets
so keeping all those things bubbling under wasn't always easy.
Keeping it all straight in my head, plotting it out, it was a tricky prospect.
It's interesting because there's a character in your book that mentions at one point
'Seriously how is anyone supposed to keep track of all the bodies around here, it's like Midsomer Murders!'
And I wondered, it's quite amazing how you do manage to keep the reader
completely on track with what's happening, while keeping mystery.
Do you ever have a sense of like, 'Oh goodness, who killed who?'
Well the thing is - there are lots of bodies in the book
but they actually, if you look at it
the time scale, the whole time scale is actually huge
so it, you know people aren't just dropping like flies everywhere
I do know who, you know, who's guilty or where,
but yes, I understand that it can look a little bit convoluted at the start
I was also interested, at the start actually, there was a point where I thought it was going to go in the realm of the police procedural
and then that is kind of merged into the background more
and the characters, the real characters, you know the people who aren't investigators
become very much more to the forefront.
Are you more interested in looking at the people that aren't the investigators?
Yeah, I think so, I didn't really want to write a police procedural.
The police needed to be there, obviously, because there's been a suspicious death,
and they are a part of it, but the procedure wasn't the bit I wanted to focus on I wanted to focus
I wanted to focus on the other stuff that was happening
and the people who live in the town, the families,
the people who are connected to these crimes in different, in other sorts of ways.
However, I thought it was - well obviously we needed the police,
and I wanted, there is one character, Erin, who's a detective, who is an outsider.
She's come in and she's the one who reckons it's like Midsomer Murders
She's looking at this place from the outside
she's almost like the readers, holding the reader's hand as we go through
and meet all these strange characters.
Now the author S J Watson commented after seeing the film of his novel, Before I Go To Sleep,
that, perhaps subconsciously, with his second book he may have been a bit more cinematic
in the way he pitched scenes and certain aspects of it.
I wondered if having, and worked with the making of the film of The Girl on the Train with Emily Blunt,
which was a big success, whether that you felt had an influence at all on the way you approached the writing of this second book.
I don't think so. I mean I didn't see the film, I didn't see The Girl on the Train until quite late
I'd already written most of this book.
There are aspects of it that I think are very cinematic
but I think there were aspects of The Girl on the Train that were as well
I don't actually have that incredibly visual imagination.
I think this book, I think, as I said, aspects of it are cinematic
but that certainly isn't at the forefront of my mind.
As we mentioned, The Girl on the Train did capture the imagination of many people
and there are now loads of books out on the shelves that literally have the words:
'Perfect for fans of The Girl on the Train'
Do you ever find it odd when you see your novel referenced in such a way on the cover?
Oh yeah, definitely, because you know...
You're used to it being in reference to other people's books so, yes, it is very strange to see
But, yeah, it's a huge compliment.
And it's great that it's been, you know,
that it's a book that people use as sort of a touchstone
about a certain sort of psychological suspense.
We're talking about a certain sort of thriller or crime thriller,
many phrases are thrown around, particularly between publishers and booksellers
about popular fiction and literary fiction and genre fiction.
Do you think those terms are helpful or do you think they can sometimes get in the way of both writers and readers?
I'm not sure that readers are that concerned about them, or most readers,
perhaps certain sorts of readers care about those labels.
Personally, I'm not sure that I do find them helpful,
and I think there are so many things that cross the borders between literary and genre
and popular and what-have-you.
I think there are lots of books that are quite difficult to actually stick in one of those categories.
Or which would fit in many of those categories
So while I understand completely why booksellers and publishers to do it,
and I do it myself, I'm not sure that it's always that helpful ticket to the reader.
I was interested that you were born and raised in Zimbabwe I understand
and have lived in lots of different cities throughout your life
and in your two thrillers, the sense of the outsiders is quite profound
and I wondered if you had a sense of the outsider's eye
when you were writing about looking in on different -
the way people live and that kind of - that side of life.
Definitely, I definitely have a sort of outsider feeling.
As you said, I grew up in Zimbabwe and then I moved to London when I was 17
And I was - I definitely felt, sort of, you know...
like I was outside of society looking in.
And I think I've always felt that a bit
I'm one of those people who likes to sort of sit back,
who's not necessarily at the heart of things,
who doesn't like to be the centre of attention actually so this is quite difficult for me!
But yeah, I am the kind of person who'd rather be watching quietly from the sidelines
And finally, we've touched on this slightly with the idea of books being referenced to The Girl on the Train,
but there is at the moment, it seems to be, a huge appetite for domestic thrillers
and particularly female domestic thrillers
and you and, you're probably tired of the comparison, also Gillian Flynn with Gone Girl,
seem to be at the forefront of this. Where do you think this appetite has come from?
Why do you think people so hungry for these kinds of books?
I imagine actually, that appetite's always been there
I think when you have a book like Gone Girl, that's so hugely successful,
then you have publishers and agents and the media
all start to look for similar things in that genre and they get pushed to the fore,
but I actually think the appetite's probably always be been there.
Now, it's just being catered for
and we're seeing it not just in books but on television as well,
there's things like Big Little Lies
which is Liane Moriaty's book which is being televised at the moment,
which is fantastic and that's all about, you know, domestic life and family,
It's taking women's lives, you know, the reality of women's lives very seriously,
and I think, yeah, you know, women read fiction, women read crime fiction, so that's why, I think.
Paula Hawkins thank you very much for talking to us today about Into the Water
Thank you very much
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