Gone Girl (Novel) | Wikipedia 

Gone Girl is a 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.

In several interviews, Flynn has said that she was interested in exploring the psychology and dynamics of a long-term relationship. In portraying her principal characters who are out-of-work writers, she made use of her own experience being laid off from her job as a writer for Entertainment Weekly.

Critics throughout the English-speaking world and particularly the United States positively received and reviewed the novel. Reviewers praised the novel\'s use of unreliable narration, plot twists, and suspense.

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 unreliable narrators and have not given all of the 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.

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 had begun writing his own memoir exposing Amy\'s murderous, manipulative tendencies, but he deleted it when Amy, who knew he had wanted a child for years, revealed her pregnancy.)

Gillian Flynn is a former writer for Entertainment Weekly who wrote two popular novels prior to Gone Girl--Sharp Objects and Dark Places.

Gone Girl is, so far, her best-selling book. Her other two books were about people incapable of making commitments, but in this novel she tried to depict the ultimate commitment, marriage: "I liked the idea of marriage told as a he-said, she-said story, and told by two narrators who were perhaps not to be trusted." Flynn has also described marriage as "the ultimate mystery."

Flynn admits to putting some of herself in the character of Nick Dunne. Like Dunne, she was a popular culture writer. Also like Dunne, she was laid off after many years at the same job.

In an interview with the Huffington Post, Flynn said, "I certainly wove that experience, that sense of having something that you were going to do for the rest of your life and seeing that possibility taken away... I definitely wove that sense of unrest and nervousness into Nick\'s character."

Asked how she can write so believably about a man\'s inner life, Flynn says "I\'m kind of part guy myself." When she needs to understand something about how men think, she asks her husband or a friend who is a man.

Flynn\'s autobiographical essay "I was not a nice little girl" also invites readers to believe she got some of her inspiration for Amy Dunne from her own interior monologue. In that essay, Flynn confesses to sadistic childhood impulses like "stunning ants and feeding them to spiders." A favorite indoor game called "Mean Aunt Rosie" allowed Flynn to cast herself as a "witchy caregiver" who exercised malevolent influence over her cousins. The same essay argues that women fail to acknowledge their own violent impulses and incorporate them into their personal narratives though men tend to cherish stories of their childhood meanness.

In an Entertainment Weekly interview, Flynn identified Zoë Heller\'s Notes on a Scandal and Edward Albee\'s Who\'s Afraid of Virginia Woolf as influences on her writing and, in particular, on the plot and themes of Gone Girl. Flynn said she admired the "ominous" ending of Notes on a Scandal and the pathology of a bad marriage from Who\'s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. For the conclusion of Gone Girl, Flynn drew from Rosemary\'s Baby: "I love that it just ends with, you know, \'Hey, the devil’s in the world, and guess what? Mom kind of likes him!\'” she said.

Flynn also says she is influenced by the mystery writers Laura Lippman, Karin Slaughter, George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane, and Harlan Coben. However, she tries not to read any one genre exclusively, and she also admires Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, T.C. Boyle, and Arthur Phillips who are better known as realistic contemporary writers.

Gone Girl fits comfortably within the commonalities of mystery, suspense, and crime genres. A Reader\'s Digest review, for instance, notes that the book is "more than just a crime novel". The review goes on to describe Gone Girl as a "masterful psychological thriller" which offers "an astute and thought-provoking look into two complex personalities".

A Chicago Tribune review notes that Gone Girl uses many of the devices common to thrillers—a cast of viable suspects, unfolding secrets, and red herrings. However, the novel does more with these devices than the thriller genre requires: "While serving their usual functions, they also do much more, launching us into an unnerving dissection of the fallout of failed dreams."

In her New York Times review, Janet Maslin also writes that the elements of Gone Girl that "sound like standard-issue crime story machinations" are not, because both narrators are also consummate liars and cannot be trusted to convey the truth about their own stories.

Salon.com writes that Gone Girl has literary features that enhance the crime genre features, adding that Flynn is "kicking the genre into high gear".

Flynn herself says that, in writing Gone Girl, she employed the mystery genre as a "thru-lane" to explore what she was really interested in: relationships.

Gone Girl\'s themes are dishonesty, the devious media, and the unhappiness that comes with a troubled economy. The characters lie to each other and the reader about affairs and disappearances. Amy even makes a fake diary to falsely implicate her husband for her disappearance and murder. Flynn says that, in writing the book, she wanted to examine how people within a marriage lie to each other: "marriage is sort of like a long con, because you put on display your very best self during courtship, yet at the same time the person you marry is supposed to love you warts and all. But your spouse never sees those warts really until you get deeper into the marriage and let yourself unwind a bit."

Several reviews have noted how well Gone Girl shows the tricky nature of media representation. Nick seems guilty due to media coverage before a trial occurs. Salon.com notes that "Flynn, a former staff writer for Entertainment Weekly, is especially good on the infiltration of the media into every aspect of the missing-person investigation, from Nick’s cop-show-based awareness that the husband is always the primary suspect to a raving tabloid-TV Fury who is out to avenge all wronged women and obviously patterned on Nancy Grace."

Entertainment writer Jeff Giles notes that the novel also plays on reader expectations that the husband will be the murderer, expectations that have also been shaped by the media: "The first half of Gone Girl is a nimble, caustic riff on our Nancy Grace culture and the way in which The butler did it has morphed into \'The husband did it.\'" he writes.

A New York Daily News review also notes the novel\'s interest in how quickly a husband can be convicted in the media: "In a media society informed by Nancy Grace, when a wife goes missing, the husband murdered her. There’s no need for a body to arrive at a verdict.

A San Francisco Chronicle review also notes the book\'s recurring commentary on media influence: "Flynn pokes smart fun at cable news, our collective obsession with social media and reality TV."

Flynn has also said that she wanted this novel to capture the sense of bankruptcy that both individuals and communities feel when the economy spirals. Not only have both her main characters lost their jobs, they have also moved to a town that is blighted by unsold houses and failed businesses. "I wanted the whole thing to feel bankrupt . . . I wanted it to really feel like a marriage that had been hollowed out in a city that had been hollowed out and a country that was increasingly hollowed out," Flynn told the Huffington Post.

Gone Girl was #1 on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list for eight weeks.

It was also twenty-six weeks on National Public Radio\'s hardcover fiction bestseller list.

Culture writer Dave Itzkoff wrote that the novel was, excepting books in the Fifty Shades of Grey series, the biggest literary phenomenon of 2012. By the end of its first year in publication, Gone Girl had sold over two million copies in print and digital editions, according to the book\'s publisher.

Gone Girl has been almost universally praised in numerous publications including but not limited to the New Yorker, New York Times, Time, Publisher\'s Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, Chatelaine, People magazine, and USA Today. Reviewers express admiration for the novel\'s suspense, a plot twist involving an unreliable narrator, its psychological dimension, and its examination of a marriage that has become corrosive. Entertainment Weekly describes it as "an ingenious and viperish thriller".

The New Yorker describes it as a "mostly well-crafted novel", praising its depiction of an "unraveling" marriage and a "recession-hit Midwest" while finding its conclusion somewhat "outlandish".

The New York Times likens Gillian Flynn to acclaimed suspense novelist Patricia Highsmith. Gone Girl, the Times goes on to say, is Flynn\'s "dazzling breakthrough", adding that the novel is "wily, mercurial, subtly layered and populated by characters so well imagined that they’re hard to part with."

A USA Today review focuses on bookseller enthusiasm for the book, quoting a Jackson, Mississippi store manager saying "It will make your head spin off."

People Magazine \'s review found the novel "a delectable summer read" that burrows "deep into the murkiest corners of the human psyche".

A Chatelaine review commends the novel\'s suspense, its intricately detailed plot and the way it keeps the reader "unnervingly off balance".

Many reviewers have noted the difficulty of writing about Gone Girl, because so little in the first half of the novel is what it seems to be. In his Time review, Lev Grossman describes the novel as a "house of mirrors". He also writes "Its content may be postmodern, but it takes the form of a thoroughbred thriller about the nature of identity and the terrible secrets that can survive and thrive in even the most intimate relationships."

An article in Salon.com laments that Gone Girl was conspicuously absent from the winning ranks of prestigious literary awards like the National Book Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. The same article argues that Gone Girl was snubbed because it belongs to the mystery genre. Judges awarding top literary prizes "have all refrained from honoring any title published within the major genres", writes Laura Miller.

Gone Girl was, however, chosen for the inaugural Salon What To Read Awards (2012).

The novel has also been short-listed for the Women\'s Prize for Fiction. Natasha Walter, one of the Women\'s Prize judges in 2013, told the Independent that there was considerable debate amongst the judges about the inclusion of Gone Girl in the finalists\' circle. Walter indicated that crime fiction is often "overlooked" by those in a position to make literary commendations.

Gone Girl was recorded as a Random House Audio Book, featuring the voices of Julia Whelan as Amy Dunne and Kirby Heyborne as Nick Dunne. It is an unabridged edition on fifteen compact discs and takes 19.25 hours to hear in its entirety.

American actress Reese Witherspoon\'s film production company and 20th Century Fox own the screen rights to Gone Girl for which they paid US$1.5 million. The novel\'s author Gillian Flynn has been engaged to write the screenplay. Witherspoon is poised to produce the film version along with Leslie Dixon and Bruna Papandrea. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Witherspoon was drawn to the script because of its strong female character and its use of multiple perspectives and non-linear structure.

On January 22, 2013, it was announced that Witherspoon will only be producing, and will not be starring in the film. David Fincher has been announced as the director,

with Ben Affleck cast as Nick and Rosamund Pike in the role of Amy. New Regency is attached to co-finance the project with Fox.

Neil Patrick Harris and Tyler Perry also have joined the cast.

Flynn, Gillian (2012). Gone Girl. New York, New York: Crown.

Nordyke, Kimberly (30 November 2012). "Hollywood\'s Most Powerful Authors: Gillian Flynn on Adapting \'Gone Girl,\' Being Too \'Wimpy\' for Crime Reporting and Her Best Advice to Writers (Q&A)". Hollywood Reporter

Haupt, Jennifer (19 November 2012). "Best-selling Author Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl". Psychology Today

Memmott, Carol (9 October 2012). "Gillian Flynn talks \'Gone Girl,\' success and movie deals". USA Today

Rousseau, Caryn (22 June 2012). "Flynn\'s \'Gone Girl\' poised to be summer thriller". Huffington Post

Flynn, Gillian. "I Was Not a Nice Little Girl". Powells.com

Lee, Stephan (4 December 2012). "Best of 2012 (Behind the Scenes): Gillian Flynn on \'Gone Girl\' twists -- \'It\'s fine with me if people don\'t like the ending

Reilly, Amy (2 October 2012). "Still Worth the Hype: Gillian Flynn’s ‘Gone Girl’". Reader\'s Digest

Gutman, Amy (28 July 2012). "A marriage gone missing". Chicago Tribune

Maslin, Janet (29 May 2012). "The Lies That Buoy, Then Break a Marriage". The New York Times

Miller, Laura (4 June 2012). "Gone Girl: Marriage can be murder". Salon.com

Lambert, Pam (2 April 2012). "Unhappily Ever After". Publisher\'s Weekly

Giles, Jeff (6 June 2012). "Gone Girl review". Entertainment Weekly

Connelly, Sherryl (24 December 2012). "Book Review: \'Gone Girl\' by Gillian Flynn". Daily News (New York)

\'Gone Girl,\' by Gillian Flynn: review". San Francisco Chronicle. Retrieved 26 December 2012.

Itzkoff, Dave (15 November 2012). "New Two-Book Deal for ‘Gone Girl’ Author Gillian Flynn". NewYorkTimes.com

"Gone Girl Book Summary". National Public Radio

"Gone Girl: Briefly Noted". New Yorker 88 (24): 93. 12 August 2012.

\'Gone Girl\' goes over the top in sales, expectations". USA Today. Retrieved 26 December 2012.

Rogan, Helen (11 June 2012). "Gone Girl". People.

(help) Retrieved from MasterFILE Premier using EBSCO.

Grossman, Lev (11 June 2012). "My So-Called Wife". Time.

(help) Volume 179, issue 23. Retrieved from Academic Search Premier

Miller, Laura (11 October 2012). "National Book Awards: Genre fiction dissed again". Salon.com

David Daley (December 23, 2012). "The What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012". [[Salon (website)|]]

Clark, Nick (13 March 2013). "Women\'s Prize for Fiction: Can Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn rob Hilary Mantel of the hat-trick?". The Independent (London)

^ "Gone Girl." Publisher\'s Weekly, Volume 259, issue 39. 24 September 2012. 71. Retrieved from EBSCO.

Nordyke, Kimberly (30 November 2012). "Hollywood\'s Most Powerful Authors: Gillian Flynn on Adapting \'Gone Girl,\' Being Too \'Wimpy\' for Crime Reporting and Her Best Advice to Writers (Q&A)". The Hollywood Reporter

Kit, Borys (22 January 2013). "David Fincher in Talks to Direct \'Gone Girl

Siegel, Tatiana (17 July 2013). "Rosamund Pike Emerges as Front-Runner to Star in David Fincher\'s \'Gone Girl\' (Exclusive)". The Hollywood Reporter.

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