Dark Places

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places was a much more ambitious, daring, and expansive than was her debut, Sharp Objects. In her second novel, the author takes the themes of the first—family, entitlement, privilege, patriarchy, and healing—flips them into their opposites—poverty, desperation, fear, and hopelessness—and examines the relationships between them, specifically the self-sustaining cycle they maintain. In this novel, Flynn also solidifies her status as a master at crafting small town and rural American life; she proved that Sharp Objects was no fluke.

Dark Places goes back and forth between Kansas City in 2009 and rural Kansas in January 1985. The 2009 chapters are told in a first-person point of view by Libby Day, who was seven years old when her mother and sisters were murdered in 1985. The earlier year’s chapters follow Libby’s mother and brother, Ben, who was convicted of the murder charges, from a third-person view as they live the 24 hours prior to the murders.

Libby escaped death by hiding in her mother’s closet and then escaping out of the window. Hiding out in the woods all night made her a victim of frostbite. When we meet her, she’s missing three toes and half a finger. 2009 Libby is a friendless loner. She lacks social skills and interaction. She lives a life you’d find unsurprising of someone who is the only surviving witness to the slaughter of her family. Up to the novel’s opening, her life was financed by well-wishers who donated to a fund for her. As the funds run out, Libby is forced to discover some other way to sustain herself. That desperation leads her to members of a Kill Club, people obsessed with famous killings. No one in the club believes Ben was actually responsible. Libby’s testimony is what put him away, which means the club members are not fans of her. She needs money, though, and she’ll put up with them long enough to make some money investigating the case for them. The heart of Dark Places is Libby’s journey of discovery.

I got into Libby and her mother right away. I think it took a few chapters for Flynn to feel comfortable with Ben’s voice. She never fully captured it, in my opinion, but she came close enough to do a credible job and say what she wanted to say.

The dichotomy between Ben’s and his mother’s growing desperation and hopelessness as they traverse through that fateful day is one of the more brilliant aspects of the novel. As each navigates his/her day, they commit actions that inadvertently, yet directly, affect the other. As Libby, who never examined or paid any attention to any aspect of the case after Ben’s conviction, begins the process of trying to piece things together, we readers learn how much everything—in life, not the story—is connected. To what do we expose our children? How much do we underestimate them? How often do we push them to lie under the guise of telling the truth? It doesn’t just point out the world’s problems, though; it also tries to get at the roots. How did we get here? What’s keeping us here? What are we afraid of?

What I consider to be the book’s biggest flaw is that, in my opinion, Chapters 33 and 40 were unnecessary. Readers should have been able to figure out all that was revealed in those chapters without their inclusion. Flynn had given us all the necessary clues.

One thing that I love about Dark Places is that no guns were left on the table, even those that seem like throwaways. This was the near flawless execution of a thoroughly conceived plan. When all is said and done, this may be remembered as Gillian Flynn’s masterpiece.

What I loved most was Libby. She was tough and brave, but not too much of anything. She was a survivor, but a believable one. Along with Mira Grant’s Georgia Mason and John Irving’s Ruth Cole, Libby Day is one of my three favorite female protagonists. Great character.



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