Dysfunctional families have been a mainstay in literature for a long time, at least as far back as Shakespeare – “Hamlet” and “King Lear” come to mind. And authors, particularly novices, love to enmesh the reader in stories of wicked step-clans.
Gillian Flynn, in her debut novel, “Sharp Objects,” offers up a literary thriller that’s a doozy of a take on the theme. And she does it with wit and grit, a sort of Hitchcock visits Stephen King, with plenty of the former’s offstage and often only implied violence, and the latter’s sense of pacing and facility with dialogue.
Camille Preaker is a struggling young reporter on a third-rate Chicago newspaper. When two little girls are found dead within months of each other in Camille’s small hometown in Missouri, her editor sends her home to file some feature stories on the killings and how they are affecting the town.
Police apparently have no idea who the killer is, but the word around town is that one of the girls’ elder brothers is the likely culprit. The story gets legs at least partly because the family is a recent addition to the town. It couldn’t possibly be one of their own, someone who has lived there a long time.
But going home is no easy assignment for Camille. Her relationship with her distant mother, Adora, is icy, strained after the death of Camille’s sister 15 years before. It’s her sister’s death that drives the relationship between mother and daughter.
Adora, it seems, relishes being the grieving mother, even after all these years, and, as Camille says, “It’s impossible to compete with the dead. I wish I could stop trying.”
Camille barely knows her 13-year-old precocious half-sister, Amma, and her stepfather, Alan, who is the “opposite of moist,” Camille says, and just a hollow man who married mother a long time ago. This is not a cozy household.
As Camille chases her story, Flynn deftly exposes Camille’s past and her relationships with family and friends from her school days. She also sheds light on a dark and disturbing secret that Camille hides from the rest of the world.
We learn just how controlling Adora is of everyone around her; about how Amma, pliable and loving around the house, is a holy terror when she is with her friends; and how Camille, while appearing the picture of common sense and brassiness, is really just as fragile as the next person.
On one level, “Sharp Objects” is a clever look at small-town America and how violence can affect such a closeted society. On another, it’s a foray into deeply troubled souls and a take on how outward appearances can completely hide something hideous inside, much like long-sleeved blouses and ankle-length skirts can mask an imperfect body beneath.
This is not a comfortable novel of touchy-feely family fun. Rather, it is a tough tale told with remarkable clarity and dexterity, particularly for a first-time author.
Books editor Tom Walker can be reached at 303-954-1624 or twalker@denverpost.com.
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Sharp Objects
By Gillian Flynn
Crown, 272 pages, $24
