Sharp Objects (2006) by Gillian Flynn

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Sharp Objects (2006) 

by Gillian Flynn

Wind Gap, Missouri

Missouri: 1/12

   Missouri is my ancestral homeland.  I've never lived there but both my parents come from the same neighborhood in St. Louis, University City.  Back then it was the Jewish neighborhood, today its best-known alumnus is Nelly.  I heard a lot about St. Louis growing up and visited maybe ten times when I was a kid.   Visits there were largely limited to my grandparents, since essentially all of my relatives left for other places- the Bay Area, where I grew up, Atlanta and Houston.  The bottom line is that it doesn't mean a whole lot to me, but it is the only state in this entire chapter where I have a personal connection that dates back to my childhood. 

  I never saw any part of Missouri except St. Louis and its immediate environs.  Sharp Objects takes place in the far southwestern corner of the state, right next to Arkansas.  Sharp Objects was the first of Flynn's three novels- the last of which, Gone Girl, became a world-beating hit.   Flynn started out as an entertainment journalist, and you can tell that she knows what she is doing in terms of writing for a specific audience and doing a good job of it.   Both Sharp Objects and Gone Girl are crime fiction with a strong third act with multiple twists.   

  Here, the protagonist is a young female journalist with a tortured past who is sent back to her small hometown in Missouri to cover a potential serial killer of little girls.  It's best not to dwell too long on the mechanics of the plot- namely that a professional journalist with a troubled relationship to her past would go back home and stay at her mom's house.  Getting a hotel/motel is pretty standard for work-related trips in this country.

   Flynn doesn't' have much to say about the wasteland of Wind Gap, Missouri, a town that is best known for its enormous slaughterhouse complex (owned by her Mom).  It would have been good to listen to an Audiobook version to hear how the characters talked- reading the book it just felt like Anywhere, USA.