Books of the Month
'Stranger on a Train' by Jenny Diski
JULY 2006
 It becomes apparent quite early on that this is either going to turn out to be a very boring sort of travel book, where nothing happens, or a different sort of travel book altogether. As a fiction writer, Diski’s quick to assert that she’s just not into books where stuff happens all the time – and that therefore the very idea of 'travel writing', where writers set off on a pre-planned journey and trust that interesting things will happen – fills her with dread. Her ideal method of writing a travel book, she confesses, would be 'to stay at home with the phone off the hook, the doorbell disconnected and the blinds drawn.'
Stranger on a Train turns out to have plenty happening – a train she’s travelling on hits a car and kills three people; the author’s propositioned several times; and she meets a cast of American train travellers who reveal their innermost secrets and life stories as readily as they say hello. But it’s in the author’s reaction to all this unwanted incident that the book is unusual. For most of it she battles with her decidedly mixed feelings about meeting her fellow passengers, listening and giving page room to their interminable stories, and forming any kind of relationship with them. Getting to know people is a kind of love-hate thing for Diski – she much prefers to be a stranger passing through, yet seems compelled to keep putting herself in situations to test this self-aware thesis. When she spends five days at the home of someone she met on a previous journey, she nearly cracks completely.
If you're looking for a book which puts America on display, and captures its essence through descriptions of its landmarks and life, you might be disappointed. This isn’t your average travel book. But if you’re interested in how travel can prompt writers to look within themselves, and back into their own pasts, and if you have a sense of humour, then Stranger on a Train should be right up your, er, track.
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