Sharp Objects was also situated at the beginning of a larger cultural obsession with media that dissected, in all their gory details, the minutiae of disturbing, confusing real-life crimes. Sharp Objects was an oddly prescient title when published in 2006, just a few years before true-crime books, television shows, films, and podcasts surged in popularity and exposed latent American fascinations and anxieties alike about the unknowability-and banality-of everyday evil.

Flynn currently resides in Chicago with her husband and two children, and has written the screenplay adaptations for both Gone Girl and the ITV series Widows. The novel sold two million copies in its first year and went on to be translated into forty languages, adapted into a major motion picture, and hailed as one of the most shocking novels in contemporary literature. The themes and ideas she explored in her first book-violence, abuse, secrets and lies, and the false idea of the “innately good” woman-would go on to make her third novel, Gone Girl, a riotous bestseller and a veritable literary phenomenon. With the publication of her critically acclaimed debut novel, Sharp Objects, in 2006, Flynn established herself as a major voice in the literary world. After receiving degrees from the University of Kansas and the prestigious Northwestern University, Flynn worked for years as a journalist and television critic, all the while penning her own stories in her spare time.

The child of professor parents, Flynn was shy as a young girl and retreated into the world of books and writing. Gillian Flynn was born and raised in Kansas City, Missouri.

Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn