Gone Girl is a contemporary thriller novel by American writer Gillian Flynn. Crown Publishing Group published the novel in June 2012 and it soon made the New York Times Best Seller list. The novel's principal suspense comes from an uncertainty about the main character, Nick Dunne, and whether he killed his wife, Amy Dunne.
Information taken from Gilian Flynn's site
Marriage can be a real killer. One of the most critically acclaimed suspense writers of our time, New York Times bestseller Gillian Flynn, takes that statement to its darkest place in this unputdownable masterpiece about a marriage gone terribly, terribly wrong. As The Washington Post proclaimed, her work “draws you in and keeps you reading with the force of a pure but nasty addiction.” Gone Girl’s toxic mix of sharp-edged wit with deliciously chilling prose creates a nerve-fraying thriller that confounds you at every turn.
On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick Dunne’s clever and beautiful wife disappears from their rented McMansion on the Mississippi River. Husband-of-the-Year Nick Dunne isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but hearing from Amy through flashbacks in her diary reveal the perky perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer? As the cops close in, every couple in town is soon wondering how well they know the one that they love. With his twin sister Margo at his side, Nick stands by his innocence. Trouble is, if Nick didn’t do it, where is that beautiful wife? And what was left in that silvery gift box hidden in the back of her bedroom closet?
Employing her trademark razor-sharp writing and assured psychological insight, Gillian Flynn delivers a fast-paced, devilishly dark, and ingeniously plotted thriller that confirms her status as one of the hottest writers around.
Plot Summary (Wikipedia)
Gone Girl takes up the story of Nick and Amy Dunne's difficult marriage, which is floundering for several reasons. Nick loses his job as a journalist due to downsizing. In a somewhat desperate state of mind, he relocates himself and his wife from New York City to his small hometown of North Carthage, Missouri. There, he opens a bar using the last of his wife's trust fund, and runs it along with his twin sister Margo. The bar provides a decent living for the three Dunnes, but the marriage becomes more and more dysfunctional. Amy loved her life in New York and hates what she considers the soulless "McMansion" which she and Nick are now renting.
On the day of their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy goes missing. Nick eventually becomes a prime suspect in her disappearance for various reasons. He used her money to start a business, increased her life insurance, and seems unemotional on camera and in the news.
In the first part of the novel, the reader does not know whether Nick is guilty. He does have morbid visions of Amy, but makes himself sound too innocent to commit such crimes. The first half or so of the book is told in first person, alternately, by both Nick and Amy; Nick's perspective is from the present, and Amy's from the past by way of journal entries. The two stories are very different. Amy's account of their marriage makes her seem happier and easier to live with than Nick depicts. Nick's story, on the other hand, talks about her as extremely anti-social and stubborn. Amy's depiction makes Nick seem a lot more aggressive than he says he is in his story.
In the second half of the novel, the reader sees that Amy and Nick are deceitful narrators and have not given all information. Nick has been having an affair and Amy is actually alive and hiding, trying to frame Nick for her "death." The diary she kept earlier in the novel is fake, intended to implicate Nick further to the police.[1]
However, Amy is soon running low on money when she is robbed by fellow guests of a motel. Desperate, she seeks help from her first boyfriend, Desi. He agrees to hide her, but Amy soon feels trapped in his house, with Desi seeming overtly determined to make Amy be with him romantically again. She murders him and returns to her husband, saying she had been kidnapped. Nick knows that she is a killer, but he stays in his marriage because she is pregnant with his child. The book ends with Amy writing that she is about to give birth to her son, and that she has written a memoir about her so-called abduction and imprisonment (Nick began writing his own memoir revealing Amy's murderous, manipulative, tendencies, but deleted it upon Amy revealing her pregnancy, who knew he's wanted a child for years now).
Keywords
Deceit
Betrayal
Diary style narration
Two sides of a person
Neuroticism/Psychopathy
Murder
Media Interference
Marriage
Trapped
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