The Girl On The Train

Rachel’s alcohol use disorder and Megan’s trauma cause issues with each woman’s memories and cognition. Tom takes advantage of the blackouts Rachel experiences when she drinks too much alcohol. Rachel describes being blackout drunk as “Total black; hours lost, never to be retrieved” (67). This state of inebriation allows Tom to fill in the missing time with the lies of his choosing. Hawkins dedicates much of Rachel’s narrative to retrieving her memories. Rachel describes the process of trying to remember:

I wait for the memory to come. Sometimes it takes a while. Sometimes it’s there in front of my eyes in seconds. Sometimes it doesn’t come at all (38).

This process defines much of Rachel’s character arc—Megan’s disappearance motivates her to try to remember rather than simply accept Tom’s lies.

Rachel’s opinions of herself and Tom change as memories come back to her. The process is multifaceted: Rachel combines many tactics, such as freewriting, visiting locations, therapy, and finally talking to someone who witnessed her actions while drunk besides Tom. One important factor in Rachel’s memory recovery is becoming addiction-free. At first, it is hard for her to go even a single day without drinking, but eventually she begins to go multiple days and—at the end of the novel—weeks without drinking.