Most readers know Paula Hawkins as The author of “The Tren’s Girl”the very successful police, taken to the cinema in 2016, who gave him worldwide fame. Until there, Hawkins was An economy journalist born in Zimbabue (where he lived until he was 17) that he had written some love novels with pseudonym. Popularity changed his life. And in addition, he allowed him to step firmly into a trade that from that moment he became fully transformed into his profession. TO “The train girl” followed “written in the water”, “over low heat” and “blind spot.”
“Blue time ”is his most recent novel And a few days ago he came to introduce her to Buenos Aires. It tells the story of a dead painter who leaves a problematic inheritance and the open wounds of several love relationships with unhappy ending. The plot takes place in A very particular island: located on the coast of Scotlandthe ups and downs of the tide is isolated completely for many hours of the day. That makes it the ideal territory for a crime and the perfect breeding ground for suffocating loves. Complex and mysterious, “the blue hour” is also a very accurate portrait of the interests and passions that move the art world.
Next, the talk that news had with the author.
NEWS: You dedicated yourself to journalism for a long time before transforming into a writer. Do you find any relationship between your original profession and police?
Paula Hawkins: I don’t know if I can talk about A direct relationship between journalism and police novelsbut having been a journalist very useful. First, journalists have them arranged themselves when they make a note and that is good at the beginning of a writer’s career. Nor are we afraid of the blank page. And we are very trained to listen to people, what they say and what they do not say, which is hidden behind their words.
NEWS: What memories do you have of your childhood in Africa?
Hawkins: I lived up to 17 years in Harare (Zimbaue) and I had a very happy childhood. We lived in a typical suburban environment, with a nice weather, pool, tennis court. As I grew up, it began to be a bit more uncomfortable to remember because I know that luxury had a very high cost, in an ultra -divided society.
NEWS: “The train girl” was an overwhelming and unexpected success. How did that stage live in which he became famous worldwide?
Hawkins: It was an extraordinary experience. At first it was a shock and a somewhat uncomfortable fact because I am an introverted person. But it was a low price to pay because that level of success opens doors to you. The best thing I can rescue from having written “The Tren’s Girl” is that I could do what I wanted, I had no restrictions.
NEWS: At the time when “La Girl on the Train” was published several novels with female protagonists, also written by women, who had gender violence as theme. In your case, why did you address these issues?
Hawkins: One of the main foci I write is the domestic, the everyday. And I was always interested in women’s lives. If I focused on domestic and women, violence had to collect a central role. I don’t know what happens here, but in the United Kingdom, women suffer violence in their homes and from people who know. Writing about crimes and women, led me directly to domestic violence.
NEWS: Is there Eris, the island that “stars” the book?
Hawkins: The island is not real. The original inspiration was an island in France, near the coast of Brittany. There I saw an island that had only one house and it seemed extraordinary as a location for a story. But I decided to transfer it to Scotland. The west coast is very beautiful and has many islands. Any of them could be that of the novel.
NEWS: The artist and the writer share a reality. On the one hand they must be totally free to create and on the other, they are tied to the market that presses them to produce. Are there similarities between Vanessa, the painter who stars in the novel and you?
Hawkins: Yes, there is a relationship between artists and writers. There is a tension, in the novel, between Vanessa’s desire for loneliness and freedom and his need to be part of a community, to have a gallery owner, to sell, to speak with the press. And that is similar to what writers live. I feel more comfortable in my office, focused, writing, but everything is necessary and is part of the world. You have to find a balance between these two zones.
NEWS: In “The Blue Time” the characters are revealed little by little, in a different way from the traditional of the police novels. How was the writing process of this story?
Hawkins: I already knew who Vanessa was when I started writing the book. But he had also decided that readers were not going to meet her alive. She was going to die at the beginning. However, he wanted the reader to discover it through other perspectives, in his diary, through cuts. I thought, how can you know who someone was never met? Regarding Grace, the other protagonist, not even she understands herself, but I also asked myself the same question, how could she know her? Small elements tell us who each is.
NEWS: You have declared that “Rebecca”, Daphne’s novel Du Murier, was an inspiration for this character.
Hawkins: There are similarities with that novel. In “Rebecca” there is also a great prominence of the landscape, the ghostic presence of a person who is not and a relationship between two women who has some Vanessa and Grace.
NEWS: Is Vanessa’s character inspired by a real artist?
Hawkins: Yes, the Scottish artist Joan Eardley, who died young as Vanessa and painted landscapes. They have no other similarities.
NEWS: After writing many stories about crimes, what feelings or passions do you think they lead a person to kill?
Hawkins: I believe that many murders occur for stupid causes or for an impulse. Someone who loses the stirrups or takes more or feels fury or fear or excessive jealousy. In general, in my novels, that is the main cause. A moment where the person loses his head. There is no one planning the crime for weeks. But rather the perfect storm occurs: a combination of different facts. If one of those things had occurred differently, perhaps the result would not have been that.
NEWS: Do you usually read police novels or do you prefer other genres?
Hawkins: When I am writing, I do not read any police novel unless I am completely different from my style. I don’t want the plot of others in my head while I am trying to write. In general, I do not read many police novels but if I do it, I lean more towards the most literary Thrillers, not so much the traditional police novel.
NEWS: And who were his models in the genre?
Hawkins: Great writers such as Patricia Highsmith or Ruth Rendell or Pdjames, among the British. Also Tana French, who is Irish. Kate Atkinson, who writes literary police. Also Megan Abott that is American, which is very “noir.” And Laura Lippman. And I just discovered an Argentine writer, Claudia Piñeiro. I read “The time of the flies.” In this novel, the crime that the protagonist committed (killed the husband’s lover), no matter too much. That is the most interesting thing, which does not really matter, just one knows what happened. The important thing is other things in relation to the daughter, the friends. All of that becomes more importance than the crime itself.
NEWS: Would you like to write novels that do not turn around a crime?
Hawkins: Yes, I think that at some point I will write stories where they don’t kill anyone.
Image gallery
