'Slightly off-kilter reality'

'I started with a desire to explore marriage this round. My previous two books were told from the point of view of women who were decidedly single-who didn't really even know how to sustain any kind of relationships, romantic or not. So I wanted to deal with a married couple, and do it as a "he said, she said" kind of narrative, because marriages are, in a way, one long version of a "he said she said" story. No matter how close we are to someone, there will always be a disconnect. I think that's why, when you go out to dinner with a married couple, there is invariably some story that they start telling, that each of them swear is being told wrong. And they are always so incensed about it, right? "You're telling it wrong!" But I think it's because, underneath, we find it alarming, that you are sharing a life with someone and yet can experience the same thing in very different ways. It's shocking sometimes. So this takes that idea of never entirely knowing your spouse, and blows it up times 1,000. As far as keeping it just this side of believable: thank you. I like to tiptoe right to the edge of gothic. My novels all have that just slightly off-kilter reality. It comes from my love of fairy tales, Lifetime movies and Davids Lynch and Cronenberg...'

Gillian Flynn, author of Gone Girl and Dark Places, on her novel Sharp Objects, on her website.