Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

This month while the snow was making venturing outside an unpleasant prospect I looked forward to nothing more than cooping up in bed with Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. 

This explosive thriller echoes flavours of Stephen King with its authentic characterisation and brilliantly acute observations on modern life and relationships.

Set in a small town in Missouri, Gone Girl is the story Amy and Nick Dunne, a couple who are suffering marital problems. Both writers, the pair originally lived in New York, but after losing their jobs during the recession cutbacks choose to relocate to Nick’s hometown. 

The novel opens on their fifth wedding anniversary, when Nick receives a phone call from his neighbour to say that his front door is wide open. 

Nick returns to the house to find that there is evidence of a struggle and that Amy is gone.

The novel is fractured into two accounts, Nick’s bewilderment during the ongoing police investigation, and Amy’s diary, written before her disappearance. 

Little can be said of the plot without revealing crucial details, but much can be said about Gillian Flynn’s talent as a writer. In Gone Girl she demonstrates a sharp understanding of the human condition and the novel pierces you at times with its frighteningly accurate portrayal of failing relationship. Listed amongst Flynn’s repertoire is also her extraordinary power to manipulate the angles of language and distort the distinction between trust and alibi. These two skills combined mean that in between chapters you will find your alliance drastically switching from Nick to Amy, so get your TEAM AMY or TEAM NICK t-shirts at the ready! Yet amongst this well-played out gender battle the book also pauses with poetics passages contemplating the recycled clichés and derivatives of modern living.

Her third novel in a line of other interesting creations with dynamic female characters (which I am now on the quest to devour), Gone Girl definitely possesses the power the shock. You may find yourself wanting to throw the book in anger after some excellently well-timed revelations by Flynn, but undoubtedly you will be gripping it with white knuckles until the very end.