Regardless of what Gillian Flynn writes, chances are she may never achieve the critical acclaim of her 2012 novel, Gone Girl, which went on to be immortalised on the silver screen. Not that Gone Girl was a classically written novel. It was, however, the unpredictable trajectory of the narrative, and the devious characterisation, that made it a memorable read. Flynn has now tried to use the same techniques to hook readers in her Edgar Award-Winner short story, The Grownup.
Originally published in an anthology edited by George R.R. Martin, the story revolves around the extreme highs and lows of an unnamed narrator, whose origins and trajectory till her appearance at the onset of the story are seedy, to say the least. She begins her professional career under the tutelage of her mother as a beggar. Moving on to the services industry where she becomes a well-known expert in sex services. Predictably after being diagnosed with carpal syndrome, she claims to possess some form of clairvoyance and becomes a vision specialist. And then walks in Susan, in need of help.
A ghostly manor, an evil step-son and the supernatural, all popular tropes that create drama and have an element of the gothic are present in the novella, but all together they are still unable to provide much satisfaction in the reading of The Grownup.
The novelist’s short story is a step down from Gone Girl
Is it because of the compressed length of the story which appears to end too abruptly? Or maybe the author deliberately wishes to create a sense of ambiguity in the narrative to highlight how utterly at the mercy we are of fate — ours and of others. While the above mentioned reasons may well be part of Flynn’s writing style, she is unable to give due space to all the multiple twists and turns she introduces and eventually the story becomes too convoluted to handle.
Flynn, in an interview to Vanity Fair, spoke about why she decided to establish such an eerie macrocosm. “I was interested in trying my hand at a ghost story ... the gift of slowly working toward an incredibly unsettling situation, and that lack of knowledge of what’s really happening and what could happen. I’m not a huge fan of outright horror but I love the slow build.”
And so what salvages The Grownup is the eerie silence each time the scene gravitates towards the Victorian house where Susan lives — Carterhook Manor. By far the strongest characterisation is of the manor. The first time it is introduced to the reader, the narrator shivers in response. “It was different. It lurked,” she says. It has all the essentials of a house that looks, feels, and is most probably haunted by ghosts. Whether these are literal or metaphoric is left to the reader to determine.
From the outside Carterhook Manor is a classically Victorian construction, yet on stepping inside another era seems to be forcibly in place, as if the house has been gutted and compelled to resemble a more modern era. But that still does not seem to stifle the unrest within it.
What remains to be unravelled is the relationship the characters have with the house and whether it is the manor that is causing upheaval within their lives, or vice versa. Had Flynn not restrained herself in terms of space and allowed each character to be fleshed out and transition, The Grownup would have been a worthy addition to classic ghost stories.
The reviewer is a Dawn member of staff.
The Grownup
(Short story)
By Gillian Flynn
Weidenfeld & Nicolson, UK
ISBN 978-1474603041
79pp.
