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Nothing in writing brings quite the same delight as having a first book published. Gillian Flynn radiates that excitement in the midst of a Seattle book-tour stop for her debut thriller, "Sharp Objects" (Shaye Areheart Books, 254 pages, $24).
The novel focuses on the return of a reporter to her hometown to cover the murder of two preteen girls, with terrifying results. Flynn's novel boasts a rave from none other than Stephen King. The personable 35-year-old resident of Chicago also is the chief television critic for Entertainment Weekly.
P-I: How the heck does one get to be the chief TV critic at Entertainment Weekly? Are you always that lucky?
Flynn: It is a lucky gig. I was hired by the magazine right out of journalism school at Northwestern. I had been there for eight years and there were many opportunities to prove yourself. I had been in the film department, then the TV critic left and I had done no criticism -- but editors liked my opinionated voice and I did a few tryouts. ...
Being the chief TV critic is a great job, incredibly fun, very cool. I go off to work, but I can stay in my pj's at home and flip on TiVo in my living room. Occasionally, it is soul-sucking when I have to watch some horrible sitcom, but getting paid to watch "24" is great.
What prompted your novel and how long did you work on it?
The idea for the main character had been knocking around in my head for a while. I kept thinking of this woman who was a cutter who had a horrible relationship with her mom. I envisioned more of an Anne Tyler story, psychological realism; it didn't start as a mystery. Then I had this idea for a little town, a really weird town, and I was also fascinated with the media interplay of missing children and knew that would be part of the story, too. I combined those threads but I still wrote two-thirds of the story with the wrong murderer.
It took more than two years to finish. I would get on a roll, then get busy at work covering "The Lord of the Rings" in New Zealand. I would try to write on weekends and used all my vacation time, but I still had to keep telling myself, "Gillian, you spend all week watching TV, you need to make some progress on your novel."
What did you have to do to get such a rave from Stephen King? Promise him your first child?
(Laughs). He writes for EW sometimes, so I went to the managing editor and asked if Stephen King might do a blurb for my novel. He said he would send it along to him. I didn't hear anything more and I had given up when his comments showed up in my e-mail box. My mom was visiting from Kansas City and I yelled to her, "Mom, look at this!" When Stephen King calls your work "admirably nasty," you're thrilled, especially since I had been the biggest Stephen King freak as a kid. We used to take turns in junior high reading his short stories at slumber parties. To get a quote from him 20 years later was over the moon!
Many people dream of having their debut novel published ... how has the reality compared with your own dream of that?
It is not far out of line. To walk into a store and see my book there, something I can actually hold in my hands, is really cool. And my reading in Chicago was nice, with so many family and friends, including my mom.
By now, I have perfected my author's signature. I examined my old signature and I thought this looks horrible. I decided it needed more smoosh. So I did 1,000 signatures in one day to come up with a new one. I feel pretty good about the signature that I have now.
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