0 ratings | 0 reviews | avg rating:0.0

#50 most followed

Gillian Flynn’s Followers (83,114)

Gillian’s Bookshelves

read (0)
currently-reading (0)
to-read (0)

Gillian’s Friends (195)

miss♥k

384 books | 78 friends

Emmejayelle

364 books | 51 friends

LiteraryMarie

1,843 books | 673 friends

Asha Seth

1,008 books | 432 friends

Kelsie Lambert

2,283 books | 25 friends

Alison

646 books | 105 friends

Emily

1,783 books | 52 friends

Krystal

3,116 books | 41 friends

More friends…

Gillian Flynn

Goodreads Author

Born

Kansas City, MO, The United States

Website

http://gillian-flynn.com/

Genre

Mystery & Thrillers

Member Since

September 2011

edit data

Gillian Flynn is an American author and television critic for Entertainment Weekly. She has so far written three novels, Sharp Objects, for which she won the 2007 Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for the best thriller; Dark Places; and her best-selling third novel Gone Girl.

Her book has received wide praise, including from authors such as Stephen King. The dark plot revolves around a serial killer in a Missouri town, and the reporter who has returned from Chicago to cover the event. Themes include dysfunctional families,violence and self-harm.

In 2007 the novel was shortlisted for the Mystery Writers of America Edgar for Best First Novel by an American Writer, Crime Writers' Association Duncan Lawrie, CWA New Blood and Ian Fleming Steel Daggers, win ...more

Learn more
Ask the Author

Gillian Flynn is currently not accepting new questions.

Popular Answered Questions

When you write something like Gone Girl, or Sharp Objects, are you afraid of hurting your husband's or your mom's feelings with the things you say about those relationships that, granted, are not necessarily autobiographical, but that may contain half-truths drawn from real life? How do you handle that kind of situation?

Gillian Flynn Hi Bo,
Great question. I've learned that you can't worry and write at the same time. If you let yourself go down that road, then what you do (and belie…moreHi Bo,
Great question. I've learned that you can't worry and write at the same time. If you let yourself go down that road, then what you do (and believe me, I've done this) is write with a little nagging angel on your shoulder, who's wringing her hands and worrying that people might get upset. It's not a good way to write well. So I put everyone out of my head and write the story I need to write. Then I have a very important and useful conversation with those close to me. For instance, the mother in Sharp Objects is nothing like my mom and my husband and I are nothing like the Dunnes, but I think it's completely viable for them to ask me any questions they'd like—and I certainly want to know if they feel I've mined something unfairly from our relationships. (I try very hard to avoid the autobiographical, and if a character starts feeling too much like someone I know in real life, I take that as a sign I'm being lazy.) Thankfully I happen to be blessed with friends and family and a husband who love books and love that I'm a writer and respect that my imagination can take me to some very unsavory places that have nothing to do with them.
thanks,
Gillian(less)

flag

1031 likes · like
19 comments

You write about some of the darkest material I've read in a long time. How do you get inside of that mindset, to creatively live there in the black, and once there, how do you pull out of it again for your day to day life?

Gillian Flynn Hi Dominic,
I think the short answer to the first question is: My brain goes very easily into the darkness. It always has. There are people who like to…moreHi Dominic,
I think the short answer to the first question is: My brain goes very easily into the darkness. It always has. There are people who like to see what's under the rock and people who don't, and for some reason I've always been one of those to say, "Hey, let's flip over that rock."
Pulling back out is the trickier part. I had to first actually acknowledge that writing toxic stories can infect my mood (it seemed a little too "writer-y" to admit that at first). But especially during the darker scenes for Gone Girl, I would catch myself bringing the nastiness upstairs with me and inflicting it on my poor husband. So I learned to give myself about 15 minutes at the end of each day to purge myself of the foul mood. I usually play a video game or pull up a really great musical dance number on my computer. I dare anyone to watch the Moses Supposes dance number from Singin' in the Rain and not be blissfully cheery by the end of it. So it's become a very healthy habit—I even have a plaque on my desk that reads: "Leave the crazy downstairs." Very good advice.(less)

flag

676 likes · like
12 comments

See all 5 answers from Gillian Flynn…

Combine Editions
Gillian Flynn’s books

Average rating: 4.06 · 4,886,098 ratings · 280,863 reviews · 29 distinct works • Similar authors

	Gone Girl 4.12 avg rating — 2,885,208 ratings — published 2012 — 341 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Sharp Objects 4.01 avg rating — 935,330 ratings — published 2006 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dark Places 3.95 avg rating — 704,261 ratings — published 2009 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Grownup 3.56 avg rating — 124,171 ratings — published 2014 — 65 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Complete Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl, Dark Places, Sharp Objects 4.29 avg rating — 4,948 ratings — published 2013 — 16 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Novels of Gillian Flynn: Sharp Objects, Dark Places 4.16 avg rating — 4,220 ratings — published 2012 — 9 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'amore bugiardo - La versione di Nick 3.80 avg rating — 250 ratings — published 2012 — 3 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	ゴーン・ガール〔上〕 by Gillian Flynn (Goodreads Author), 中谷友紀子 (Translator) 3.58 avg rating — 118 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	ゴーン・ガール〔下〕 3.65 avg rating — 98 ratings — published 2012	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	L'amore bugiardo - La versione di Amy 3.53 avg rating — 77 ratings — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Gillian Flynn…

0 posts
Gillian Flynn's Blog

Gillian Flynn hasn't written any blog posts yet.

Here at Goodreads World Headquarters, we see a lot of mystery and thriller novels come down the pike. Like, a lot a lot. As such, we’ve...

88 likes · 13 comments

Quotes by Gillian Flynn (?)

“Men always say that as the defining compliment, don’t they? She’s a cool girl. Being the Cool Girl means I am a hot, brilliant, funny woman who adores football, poker, dirty jokes, and burping, who plays video games, drinks cheap beer, loves threesomes and anal sex, and jams hot dogs and hamburgers into her mouth like she’s hosting the world’s biggest culinary gang bang while somehow maintaining a size 2, because Cool Girls are above all hot. Hot and understanding. Cool Girls never get angry; they only smile in a chagrined, loving manner and let their men do whatever they want. Go ahead, shit on me, I don’t mind, I’m the Cool Girl.

Men actually think this girl exists. Maybe they’re fooled because so many women are willing to pretend to be this girl. For a long time Cool Girl offended me. I used to see men – friends, coworkers, strangers – giddy over these awful pretender women, and I’d want to sit these men down and calmly say: You are not dating a woman, you are dating a woman who has watched too many movies written by socially awkward men who’d like to believe that this kind of woman exists and might kiss them. I’d want to grab the poor guy by his lapels or messenger bag and say: The bitch doesn’t really love chili dogs that much – no one loves chili dogs that much! And the Cool Girls are even more pathetic: They’re not even pretending to be the woman they want to be, they’re pretending to be the woman a man wants them to be. Oh, and if you’re not a Cool Girl, I beg you not to believe that your man doesn’t want the Cool Girl. It may be a slightly different version – maybe he’s a vegetarian, so Cool Girl loves seitan and is great with dogs; or maybe he’s a hipster artist, so Cool Girl is a tattooed, bespectacled nerd who loves comics. There are variations to the window dressing, but believe me, he wants Cool Girl, who is basically the girl who likes every fucking thing he likes and doesn’t ever complain. (How do you know you’re not Cool Girl? Because he says things like: “I like strong women.” If he says that to you, he will at some point fuck someone else. Because “I like strong women” is code for “I hate strong women.”)”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

tags: what-men-really-want

5205 likes

“There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

1836 likes

“There's a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.”
― Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl

tags: idealizations, love

1792 likes

See all Gillian Flynn's quotes »

Polls

March 2020 General Poll

We ask that you only vote if you are planning on participating in our discussion should your choice win.

Which Crime, Mystery or Thriller would you like to read in March?

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

29 votes, 59.2%

Ripper by Isabel Allende

20 votes, 40.8%

49 total votes

comments and details

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
The Book Challenge: Heather's 2008 Challenge	111	305	Dec 07, 2008 08:15AM
Mystery/Thriller ...: JF, NR	188	265	Jun 24, 2009 03:36AM
Mystery/Thriller ...: Library Saturday	44	133	Aug 09, 2009 01:08PM