The Grownup
Author | Gillian Flynn |
---|---|
Original title | What Do You Do? |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Publisher | Crown (US) Weidenfeld & Nicolson (UK) |
Publication date | 2014 (in collection) 3 Nov 2015 (stand-alone) |
Media type | |
Pages | 64 |
The Grownup is a short story by
Plot
The narrator, a
She meets wealthy housewife Susan Burke, who believes that the
However, Miles then reveals to the narrator that Susan's husband is a man whom the narrator often serviced at Spiritual Palms. As revenge, Susan has lured the narrator with fake stories and is planning to kill the narrator and Miles, then frame the narrator as the aggressor. Miles asks the narrator to help him flee in her car.
Later, in the car, Miles reveals that he lied: Susan had no idea of her husband's infidelity. Instead, Miles has framed the narrator as a thief and a kidnapper, and threatens to turn her in to the police if she does not comply with his orders. He needs her to help him travel the country as he wishes by posing as his adult guardian. Trapped in the arrangement and suspecting that Miles is a violent
Reception
Natasha Tripney writing in The Guardian has some reservations: "Flynn plays around with the conventions of the ghost story, albeit in a rather heavy-handed way. Given how slim a thing this is, she squeezes in several wrong turns, but it all feels a bit mechanical. It's her evocation of the main character's grimy life that is, in the end, more intriguing than all the haunted house business."[2]
Other critics were positive, however. Doug Johnstone writes in The Independent: "Flynn handles the throbbing suspense and horror build-up as expertly as ever. As you might expect, there are a couple of big twists and reveals, although this reviewer spotted them coming down the tracks. The problem here, I think, is down to simple length and depth of story. In this shortened, condensed format, it’s harder to embed the background and clues to a twist without the reader noticing, though that doesn’t stop them being a lot of macabre fun when they arrive.'[3]
Katie Law praises the story in Evening Standard: "The good news for Flynnies is that in its way this is another mini-Gone Girl: once again she employs unreliable narrators and re-introduces us to the idea that women can be nastier and more vengeful than men, especially when powered by corrosive sexual jealousy. The con girl may be unpleasant, but she’s the least of it. The bad news is that at just under 80 pages, it’s gone girl too quickly."[4]
It 2016, it was reported that Universal Pictures was adapting the story, with the author and Michael De Luca to produce the film, and Natalie Krinsky to write the screenplay.[5]
References
- ^ "2015 Edgar Award Winners | Mystery Writers of America". mysterywriters.org. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
- ^ Tripney, Natasha (November 1, 2015). "The Gone Girl author toys with ghostly conventions in this heavy-handed tale". The Guardian. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
- ^ Johnstone, Doug (20 November 2015). "A small tease to keep us going". The Independent. Archived from the original on 2022-06-18. Retrieved 19 December 2021.
- ^ Law, Katie (15 October 2015). "Calling all Flynnies: the con girl who's like gone girl". Evening Standard. Retrieved December 19, 2021.
- ^ Robinson, Will (February 12, 2016). "Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn's short story The Grownup bought by Universal". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved December 19, 2021.