Review: Dark Places by Gillian Flynn
Dark Places is told primarily by Libby Day, the sole survivor of the murders of her family when she was a child. Libby knows who committed the crime. In fact, her testimony put her brother Ben away for life. Libby is now in her 30s, in a state of arrested development, living off the dwindling reserves of donations made back when Libby was still little and her family’s case was still in the news.
But the money is running out fast, and her financial burden puts Libby into contact with a “Kill Club,” a group of true crime enthusiasts who will pay Libby for her time. And maybe a few pieces of family memorabilia. Soon Libby is confronted with the murders again and she begins to question her testimony and memory for the first time.
The novel is split by alternating chapters that are narrated by Libby in the present and chapters that focus on the 24 hours leading to the murders. These third person chapters follow Libby’s brother Ben or their mother Patty Day.
Flynn’s prose is as sharp as ever, and her ability to draw characters from their smallest details and idiosyncrasies is on full display in Dark Places. The picture Flynn is able to paint of not only Libby, Ben, and the family but also the minor characters that orbit both narrative threads is so complete and is easily the book’s strongest consistent asset.
Dark Places is such an apt name for the novel it’s a bit ridiculous. On the surface that’s superfluous to say about a story with murdered children. But Dark Places is unrelentingly depressing. The innate tragedy of every single character is unable to be loosened through time. Each character feels trapped in their own ways. As an example, Libby lost several fingers and toes due to frostbite because of her escape from the slaughter. Devastating on its own; she is always carrying her trauma, these are more than scars. At one point, just as an aside, it’s mentioned that Libby didn’t need amputation at all. This detail broke me. A knife to the side.
Characters constantly get shit on, get abused, bullied, taken advantage of, have nothing going for them, and have generally broken lives. If you’re feeling a distinct lack of pity or empathy for others, this is a story that will set you straight or maybe harden your heart so you cannot feel when awful things happen to you.
Dark Places can’t live up to the incredible Sharp Objects in my eyes. Sharp Objects, another crime novel full to the brim of violence, abuse, trauma, and broken families has so much more to say than Dark Places. Dark Places concerns itself with topics like the Satanic Panic of the last century (think the true-life case of the West Memphis Three). But the novel ultimately doesn’t provide a commentary on the issues surrounding the hysteria of the panic. This background sets the stage and the tone, but I can’t help but feel like Flynn could have gone deeper.
The same is true for discussing the obsession we have for true crime stories. The novel comes very close to satirizing true crime fandom, but it falls just short. And some of those scenes on the edge are the strongest in the book. The characters and situations are already in place, they’re just missing that connecting tissue Flynn so excellently provides throughout Sharp Objects. The clearest point made in Dark Places is that there will always be another little girl to take the place of the last tragedy. There’s always a missing girl, a dead girl, a surviving girl to slot into the vacancy left when the last news cycle tires out.
In places Flynn got caught in the tangle of her own mystery, and the later stages of the novel are about untangling the threads than anything else. It’s a good thing then that the mystery and characters remain compelling throughout, even as the events of those 24 hours somehow get more dense and muddled the deeper we venture into the dark place.
