Born in Zimbabwe in 1972, author Paula Hawkins studied PPE at Oxford University before joining the Times as a business journalist. She started writing romantic fiction under the name Amy Silver, and in 2015 published The Girl on the Train, a psychological thriller that went on to become an international bestseller. In 2016, it was adapted into a film starring Emily Blunt and Rebecca Ferguson, and a Hindi-language remake was released earlier this year. Her latest novel, A Slow Fire Burning, is published by Transworld on 31 August.
1. Film
Limbo (dir Ben Sharrock, 2020)
Ben Sharrock’s film about a group of refugees who have been sent to a remote Scottish island while their asylum applications are processed is a gem, by turns heart-rending and hilarious. The film centres on Omar, a young Syrian oud player who has fled his homeland, leaving his brother to the fighting and his parents to wait in Turkey while he tries to make a life for himself in Britain. The cinematography is sublime, making exquisite use of the bleakly beautiful Hebridean landscapes, but it is Omar’s dealings with the locals, as well as his fellow refugees – especially the mournful, Freddie Mercury-worshipping Afghan Farhad – that give the film its heart.
2. Art
As Paula Rego: Obedience and Defiance at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art was one of the last exhibitions I saw before the pandemic began, it seemed fitting that the retrospective of her work at Tate Britain should be one of the first I visited since museums and galleries opened up again. As a writer, Rego’s storytelling approach to painting resonates with me; so many of her themes are mine, too: motherhood, violence against women and girls, female pain and female desire. Her work is at once confrontational and tender, playful and very, very dark.
3. Fiction
Laura Lippman’s astute modern noir is an absolute joy to read. In her author’s note, Lippman acknowledges her debt to Stephen King’s Misery, one of many literary inspirations for this breathless and claustrophobic tale of a bed-bound author descending into horror as his past – in the form of wronged women both real and imagined – returns to haunt him. Sharp, knowing, hilarious, chilling and gloriously bookish, Dream Girl is a thought-provoking page-turner from one of the best crime novelists writing today.
4. Graphic novel
The Secret to Superhuman Strength by Alison Bechdel
Until recently, I was aware of Alison Bechdel only in relation to the “Bechdel test”, which assesses the representation of women in cinema, asking whether a movie features at least two women who talk to each other about something other than a man. After hearing Bechdel interviewed on The Shift, Sam Baker’s brilliant podcast about women over 40, I bought what turns out to be Bechdel’s third graphic memoir, a tender, witty and poignant look back at a lifelong obsession with fitness. Through gorgeously detailed and precise drawings, she chronicles not just her various fixations (skiing, karate, running, yoga, interval training, etc), but also feminism, family tragedy, queerness, polyamory, the Romantic poets, Buddhism, private failure and professional success.
5. TV
As a chubby teenager in the 1980s, I spent many a Saturday morning sweating gently alongside my (gorgeous, slender, long-limbed) best friend while Jane Fonda exhorted us to feel the burn. So it was with great joy that I discovered and binged Physical. Rose Byrne stars as former hippy and frustrated housewife Sheila Rubin, who seeks salvation from her sleazy husband and an eating disorder through aerobics. Critics have complained about the unrelenting viciousness of Sheila’s self-loathing inner monologue; I found it excruciating in its accuracy and completely irresistible.
6. Restaurant
My favourite Edinburgh restaurant. I’ve only lived here for a year, much of which has been spent in lockdown, but I’ve already been here three times and am booked to return in a couple of weeks. The venue itself is beautiful – a capacious, high-ceilinged room in a former (you guessed it) timber yard. The staff are warmly welcoming, the mostly organic wines are unfailingly good and the food is wonderful. I’ve yet to have a poor dish, but the standouts on my last visit were the summer greens with chanterelles and a leek and Tunworth tart, and the confit trout with gooseberry and fennel.
