Gone Girl
Gillian Flynn (2012)
“A missing wife, a suspected husband, and a diary that rewrites everything you thought you knew about marriage.”
Short Summary
On their fifth wedding anniversary, Amy Elliott Dunne disappears from her Missouri home, and all evidence points to her husband Nick. Part One, told through Nick's present-tense narration and Amy's diary entries, builds a damning case against a man who seems cold, dishonest, and capable of murder. Part Two detonates the narrative: Amy is alive, the diary is fiction she engineered to frame Nick, and the disappearance is an elaborate revenge plot against a husband she considers unworthy. Part Three chronicles Nick's impossible counter-campaign and Amy's return after she murders her ex-boyfriend Desi Collings, fabricating a kidnapping story. The novel ends with Amy pregnant with Nick's child and both trapped in a marriage neither can leave — performing devotion for the cameras while despising each other behind closed doors.
Detailed Summary
Nick and Amy Dunne have retreated from New York to Nick's hometown of North Carthage, Missouri, after both lose their jobs during the 2008 recession. Their marriage has deteriorated into mutual resentment: Nick feels emasculated by unemployment and Amy's trust fund, while Amy feels stranded in a tow...