Binge Reading

Rapper L and I had a recent email convo about what I like to call "binge reading," which is to say, reading several things at a time, rather than reading a single book, then moving on to another single book, etc.

What's your method?

G's is the one-book-at-a-time; mine is binging.  Right now (in addition to my never-ending New Yorker consumption) I'm plodding through a book about global warming, and plugging along on the 3rd Game of Thrones book.  But dangit if I didn't get the Amazon order of Gillian Flynn's (Gone Girl) other two books last week and immediately dive into them.  I just finished this one:

Dark Places by Gillian Flynn

Dark Places is a psychological thriller about Libby Day, who witnessed and survived the violent murder of her mother and two sisters as a small child.  Her controversial testimony helped convict her teenage brother of the murders - some say they were Satanic rituals -sending him to life in prison.  Now, as a thirty-something, she finds herself broke and aimless.  Members of an odd "fan club" of unsolved murder mysteries approach her and offer to pay her for each clue she tracks down.  Why not?  All of a sudden she has money and a purpose, but it comes at the cost of digging up her terrifying past, and it may even put her in the path of the killer she eluded all those years ago.

This is a suspenseful dive into a whodunit book; it's not a horror story, but it has some disturbing parts of a violent and sexual nature.  Flynn's writing is raw and intense (and really good); there were a couple of times I'd think to myself, "Holy Schmoly, what are you reading?" and then I was back at it because I wanted to know how it ended.  And of course I'm so addicted that as soon as I finished this one, I picked up her other published book and will probably write about it, you know, later today when I finish it.  Hardy har, but yeah, really.

Just like in Gone Girl, she is all about using the hyphens in this book.  It gets to me; it hops off the page and crawls all over my face, but I overcome it and read on.  Example:  "Most of Ben's devotees are women.  Jug-eared and long-toothed, permed and pant-suited, tight-lipped and crucifixed."

Once you get past that (if you can get past that) the writing is so dead-on:

"She sat me down in a living room that seemed stuffed:  chairs, sofa, rug, pillows, curtains, everything was plump and round and then layered with even more material.  She bustled in and out a bit, calling over her shoulder instead of standing still, asking me twice what I wanted to drink.  Somehow I knew she'd try to give me dirt-smelling, crystal-happy, earthen mugs of Beebleberry Root Tea or Jasmine Elixir Smoothie, so I just asked for water.  I looked for liquor bottles but couldn't spot any.  There were definitely some pills being swallowed here though.  Everything just plinked off this woman - bing, bang! - like she was shellacked."

I also appreciate that Flynn's novels are set in the Mid-West/South.  She talks about Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas; she captures the culture and the people and the landscape in a fair way.  It's nice to not read about huge, metropolitan cities all the time.

If you are looking for a thriller in all senses of the word, this is a good one.  Enjoy!