Gone Girl, Gillian Flynn

 

The Book

On his fifth anniversary, Nick Dunne's wife, Amy Elliot Dunne disappears from the family home and is presumed dead. As the days drag on, and Nick's lies to the cops add up, he comes under increasing suspicion of having murdered her. Nick's twin sister, Margo, catches him having an affair with a student from the college where he is teaching and she cannot believe her brother has been such and idiot. Nick is arrested for her murder, even though her body has not been found.  Desperate to prove his innocence, Nick hires an expensive attorney who specializes in uxoricide (the murder of one's wife). Gradually, they change the story from Nick didn't want his wife and their baby, to a man desperate to find out what happened to his wife and baby and begging her kidnappers to let her come home. 

The story is somewhat believable because Amy is the miracle baby of two renowned child psychologists who made (and then spent) a fortune writing about Amy growing up, turning their miracle child's existence into the "Amazing Amy" franchise. She has had deranged stalkers in the past, and so there are people, other than Nick, who might have had unhinged thoughts about her. When the truth is discovered, the expensive attorney declares Nick and Amy's marriage the most messed up he's ever seen, and he specialized in messed up marriages. 

My Thoughts

First of all, if you're an Xer and married, make sure your marriage is on solid ground before cracking this book open. It is a deeply disturbing look into the cultural expectaions of people in my generation. Something that the filter of the camera had not prepared me for when I saw the movie. Amy is definitely a modern woman of my generation. She is easily likable, smart, gutsy, and seems to know how to hit each expectation of my generation flawlessly. And in the end, it's not shocking that for her, that is all a façade. But it's Nick's first person account, charmingly honest in places, heartbreaking in others, he displays the weaknesses of men in my generation, and the expectation game as well. His martial lies, even though we know they are there from page one, are disturbingly easy to understand. 

The book is set at the tail end of The Great Recession, when so many houses were sitting empty and they could be had for a song. In these terrifying days, my husband and I purchased the townhouse where we currently reside. It brought back my own relocation for similiar reasons. And though my marriage is much stronger and more honest than the Dunne's, it's terrifying to see how easily it might have slipped along the way. 

I see why the book has been challenged. There is a fair amount of critcial response that centers on if Gillian Flynn's work shows a deeply disturbed portrait of an unbalanced woman, or simply perpetuates tired tropes of misogyny. But I think Flynn is doing something completely different here. This book definitely hits all of the noir tropes. 

Nick is an ordinary guy. 

He is caught up in a situation only partly of his own making. 

He is neither cop nor criminal, but an everyman along for the ride, at the mercy of events and in control of events, only to a certain degree. 

The cops both hurt and help him. 

The woman in the middle of this mystery hits all of the attributes of the femme fatale trope. 

Amy is:

Beautiful 

A liar

Willing to use her looks and sex to get her way and confuse the men in her life

On the run

Copes unevenly with life's challenges

Does criminal things

Has a past history of untrustworthy behavior

And has her own agency outside of the roles set forth to her by society

The fact that there is very little discussion about her as a femme fatal shows that the trope is dead. And for all of the talk that the femme fatal is a proto feminist, we see that the feminist movement has firmly planted her trope in the past. And that is the where she belongs. 

How Much My Library Chard Saved Me

This 415 page first edition still resides in my library in the fiction section. It is definitely a mystery. It entered my library on October 24, 2012. It has some slight water damage, but honestly, it was repaired so well, that I could hardly tell. (I'm pretty sure it was ironed out, there are videos on YouTube for how to do that if water damage happens to your personal book. DO NOT ATTEMPT TO REPAIR A LIBRARY BOOK. 

This book was a fast read, and easy to hold, there were no other signs of damage in this book. The cover says it cost $25. That is the number we will use. 

This Book                                             $25.00

Items Reviewed This Year                  $210.96

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