Edie, Jake and Ryan are the three protagonists of Punto Ciego (Planeta/Columna, in Catalan), the new novel by Paula Hawkins (Harare, 1972). The author is passing through Barcelona these days to talk about this inseparable trio of friends whose relationship changes when one of them, Jake, is brutally murdered.
“From that tragic event, everything falls apart. I was interested, on the one hand, in seeing how such a strong and apparently unbreakable relationship can go to waste from one moment to the next and, also, in exploring how far one can go to repair the damage. Always keeping the past very present, as paradoxical as that may sound. And it is that, if we do not look back, we cannot understand how people become what they are. Whether we like it or not, our past defines us, which is why I always end up referring to it in my books.”
As usual in his style, Hawkins pushes the protagonists to the limit throughout the narrative, because “only then can you see how someone acts when taken to an extreme.” This, he admits, “causes my characters to often come off and be a little obnoxious. As my children that they are, it is something that I do not usually agree with. I would call them rather complex, although this time I even think that some of them are too complicated. But history required it that way.
With this story, written in full confinement, the author of The Girl on the Train faces what has been one of her greatest challenges so far: writing a short novel. “I feel satisfied to have achieved it, it is not easy to condense a story of these characteristics in less than 20,000 words”. The author was chosen by the English charity The Reading Agency to be part of the Quick Reads programme, which aims to promote reading in the UK.
The story has not gone unnoticed since it arrived in English in bookstores. In fact, Hawkins anticipates that there is already a production company interested in buying the rights to be able to take it to the audiovisual. “We are still in negotiations and I can’t predict the future, but I think the scenery itself and the plot is worthy of a horror movie. Put yourself in situation. A house on a cliff in Scotland, full of windows, in which you can see everything that happens from outside. Thinking about it makes me shiver, but maybe it’s because I’m always trying to get into the mind of a criminal. It is one of the most interesting points of my work”.
Despite the fact that she is in full promotion, the author anticipates that she is already working on her new novel, although she acknowledges that “I prefer not to give more details because I think that otherwise I will jinx it. Of course, it will be just as dark and creepy,” she concludes.
