Gillian Flynn

Gillian Flynn (born February 24, 1971, in Kansas City, Missouri) is an American author and screenwriter whose dark psychological thrillers helped define the 'domestic noir' subgenre and reshaped the broader thriller landscape. She studied journalism at the University of Kansas and earned an MFA in journalism from Northwestern University. She worked for many years as a television critic at Entertainment Weekly before becoming a full-time novelist. Flynn published three novels: Sharp Objects (2006), Dark Places (2009), and Gone Girl (2012). Gone Girl became one of the best-selling novels of the 2010s, a complex psychological thriller told through alternating first-person narratives that subverted expectations about victim and perpetrator. It won the Goodreads Choice Award for Mystery & Thriller in 2012 and was adapted into a critically acclaimed film by David Fincher in 2014, for which Flynn wrote the screenplay. The term 'unreliable narrator' entered popular discourse largely through Gone Girl's cultural impact. Flynn went on to adapt Sharp Objects and Dark Places for film and television as well. Her writing is distinguished by its unflinching portrayal of female psychology, moral ambiguity, and the darkness lurking beneath suburban normalcy. She lives in Chicago with her family.