Gone Girl

Perhaps the most effective deployment of the ‘unreliable narrator’ in modern publishing, Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl is a true global phenomenon. Alternating between the present-day narrative of husband Nick Dunne and the past diary entries of his wife Amy, we learn their previously perfect marriage has come undone following a move from New York to semi-rural Missouri. Amy inexplicably disappears without trace, apparently pregnant; Nick, whose emotions seem to betray little outward signs of grief or worry, is the prime suspect. However, is all that we read the truth? Is Amy genuinely missing, and, if not, what could be her possible motive? With razor-like precision, Gillian Flynn’s third novel allows a window into the lives and minds of two complex protagonists but still leaves the reader often guessing the reality of the situation; constantly, the plot flip-flops the reader’s suspicion and sympathy, gradually revealing more about its leads and more about the darkness that consumes them both. Launching a vast fleet of lookalike novels, Gone Girl remains the jewel in the crown and one of the true essential novels of the decade.