The Grownup by Gillian Flynn review – a spooky short with too many wrong turns

The Gone Girl author toys with ghostly conventions in this heavy-handed tale

This novella by Gillian Flynn, author of the phenomenon that was Gone Girl, was originally published in an anthology edited by George RR Martin and is here released as a standalone volume. It’s an intentionally twisty (and twisted) thing, in which the protagonist, a grifter who dabbles as both a psychic and sex worker (hand jobs only), takes a job in an imposing Victorian house. The highly strung owner worries that there’s some kind of malevolent presence in the building, but her stepson Miles seems a more likely candidate.

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.

Continue reading...