+ HER BOOKS
The Girl with the Sharp Object BY MORGAN HUFSTADER
C
hances are, you probably know Gillian Flynn as the author of Gone Girl, the summer bestseller and soon-to-be movie featuring Rosamund Pike and Ben Affleck and (fittingly) directed by David Fincher. Gillian Flynn made her debut with the lesser known but equally dark Sharp Objects, a novel about Camille Preaker, a young journalist who, in order to get the biggest story of her career, has to return to the one place she’d hoped she’d never see again: home. However, the opportunity to report on a serial murderer of young girls in her hometown proves too tempting and Camille finds herself back in her old stomping grounds. She is forced to stay with her hypochondriac mother, her distant stepfather, and her thirteenyear-old half-sister who fluctuates somewhere between “baby girl” and “vicious temptress” and, somehow, try to retain her sanity. Sharp Objects is hauntingly disturbing, but Camille Preaker’s acidic humor and eye for detail keeps the pages turning. Most striking about this book, however, is the fact that every important character in the novel is female. Talk about female empowerment—from the good, to the bad, to the ugly, Sharp Objects takes a stab at all shades of femininity. Gone is the damsel in distress or the handsome hero to save the day; from page one, it becomes clear that the only person that can both save and destroy Camille is herself. One of the most interesting topics that Sharp Objects touches on is women’s capacity for violence. Often, women are seen as gentle, nurturing creatures. Even the wickedest of female villains tend to prefer to use their feminine wiles and skills of manipulation to get what they want. However, in Sharp Objects, we get a glimpse of women very deliberately harming themselves and others and even, at times, taking a near erotic pleasure in the act of violence. Author Gillian Flynn had something to say about this and wrote on her website: “Libraries are filled with stories on generations of brutal men, trapped in a cycle of aggression. I wanted to write about the violence of women. So I did. I wrote a dark, dark book…It’s not a particularly flattering portrait of women, which is fine by me. Isn’t it time to acknowledge the ugly side? I’ve grown quite weary of the spunky heroines, brave rape victims, soul-searching fashionistas that stock so many books. I particularly mourn the lack of female villains — 48
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good, potent female villains…I’m talking violent, wicked women. Scary women. Don’t tell me you don’t know some. The point is, women have spent so many years girl-powering ourselves — to the point of almost parodic encouragement — we’ve left no room to acknowledge our dark side. Dark sides are important. They should be nurtured like nasty black orchids. So Sharp Objects is my creepy little bouquet.” As Gillian Flynn suggests, “girl power” can only go so far. In order to truly see women equality represented in fiction, authors must not only cast them as the spunky heroines, but they must also shed light on the darker side of femininity. Sharp Objects does just that, penning ugly truths with beautiful, relentless prose. For avid readers of Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and other such sinister mysterious, I highly suggest cleaving open Sharp Objects.
hers-magazine.com