Book #104: Gone Girl

Book #104: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

August 9, 2014

Whoa. Shit in this book got way too  real. I would consider this book to be a very dark commentary on attitudes toward marriage, with some very extreme and complex characters. I was very impressed with the way Flynn shaped these characters, because while they (and I’m taking specifically about Amy and Nick, the two narrators, here) could be very disgusting and easy to hate, you could also understand them, in a way. As I said, it was all just  too twisted, and yet so much of it seemed to ring true.

Okay, so while I was pretty certain throughout the first part of the book that Nick really didn’t have anything to do with Amy’s disappearance, and that something very different was happening, I didn’t see it coming. Nick comes off as a monster in the first part of the book, while Amy comes across as pretty normal, a pretty woman, maybe a bit of a snob, but certainly not someone who deserves to be beaten to death by her husband. But it turns out that Nick is pretty much your run-of-the-mill douche, just an average guy, really. I mean, even in the first part, besides the visions of him bashing his wife’s head open in their kitchen, I wasn’t convinced that he was a completely terrible guy. The visions could be either attributed to a time that he felt provoked by Amy and actually pushed her (one incident that led to her very, very extreme actions) and she hit her head, or to a fantasy that he’s had of bashing her head in with a hammer. Okay, so that’s probably not normal, but I don’t think very many people could judge just a fantasy. Especially when the reader becomes introduced to the “real” Amy.

People who are dating often show a very selective side of themselves to the other person. They hope they can keep the person around long enough to attach themselves in a committed relationship, and once they’re moved in or married, they suddenly have all these personality traits that were previously hidden. Sometimes its normal things, like not realizing that your partner is a neat-freak or hearing them baby-talk their dog obnoxiously (I’m guilty of that, and wouldn’t do it in front of anyone I was dating casually, haha!). Or, in the case of Amy with Nick, it could be that she completely fabricates her entire personality, and slowly sheds this fake identity and is pissed when you don’t love her still. I mean, the weird thing is, what she’s saying about the “cool girl” stuff is completely true. There are many desperate girls who claim to like Star Wars or whatever, or watch sports, just to get in with their guy. Completely faking your whole personality until you’re two years into a marriage seems really extreme, but I don’t necessarily think that Amy is unique in this. In most cases, it would end in divorce. That wasn’t going to happen to Amy.

Can I talk about the Elliotts for a second? I’ve been dying to talk about the Elliotts. Amy is an only child, a “miracle baby,” to two child psychologists, Rand and Marybeth. During her childhood, they made massive money on a series of children’s books about a girl named “Amazing Amy.” In the years leading up to this incident, the series had become less and less popular, as “Amazing Amy” aged along with real-life Amy. Amy always felt like her parents used the series to criticize her choices in life, simple choices like ditching a soccer game to hang out with friends, while “Amazing Amy” would reflect and decide to stick to her commitments…because she’s perfect. It would suck to live that way, especially with your parents being lovey-dovey all the time (“come on, baby, now, I’ll show you a good time”). Both Nick and Amy find that pretty disgusting. And is it forced? Amy says that she told Desi (Jesus Christ, I will get to that motherfucker in a minute) that her father would come into her room when she was a kid and…you know. Was that even true? She basically lied to everyone close to her, all the time.

In many ways, it was Rand and Marybeth who forced Nick and Amy to move to Missouri, after taking most of Amy’s trust fund (borrowing it, I guess) after they had been spending so irresponsibly. Both Amy and Nick had worked for magazines, more or less as writers (Nick more, Amy less, no matter what she says about it), and…well, the book takes place in modern day, so guess what? So, jobless and with only a fraction of Amy’s money left, they go to Nick’s hometown, a cheaper place to live than NYC, surely, with the intention of caring for Nick’s separately ailing parents. His parents are a complicated situation in and of themselves, but not as weird as Amy’s whole situation. His father is a sexist, belligerent man with Alzheimer’s; his mother died of cancer maybe a  year after they’d moved to Nick’s hometown. But really, if they’d had the money and their jobs, they would have stayed in New York, regardless of how sick his parents were.

Okay, on to Desi. I could tell he was a creeper when Nick paid him a visit, even after finding out that most of Amy’s claims about his behavior after their break up (in high school!) were exaggerated or false, of course. Still a creep. He reminded me of that guy from that creepy old movie, The Collector; he’s a rich pansy who more or less wants to keep Amy as his pet. And he’s obviously very sexually confused, and a momma’s boy. Did he deserve what he got? Not really. But honestly, it wouldn’t be a stretch to think that he would do what Amy says he did, because quite frankly, he’s that type. Super creep. But not actually the worst character in the entire book!

Just a quick word about Margo (Go). She’s Nick’s feisty twin sister. I like her, mostly, but she wasn’t completely and totally fleshed out. I kind of felt like, with a character that had so much potential, that I already knew her, I’d read her elsewhere, almost a kind of stock character. Is she gay? I read her as gay, and nothing, not a whisper or a hint, is mentioned of this. I’m pretty sure, though…

The negative comments that I’ve seen about this book pretty much reflect on the fact that the characters are kind of hard to stomach. I appreciate this book, though, for the fact that they’re so complicated, they’re relatable…which is a little hard to stomach in itself. I would definitely read more by Gillian Flynn. I found myself, before I’d really gotten into the meat of the story, comparing her mastery of characterization to that of Kazuo Ishiguro, one of my favorite contemporary authors. This is the kind of book that I’d cautiously recommend; I’d want to recommend it with enthusiasm, but I feel like many people, like those negative reviewers, would somehow not be able to connect with the story. Perhaps there’s a lack of honesty there, if they deny to themselves that they can’t, somehow, understand these characters. Sick in the head, yes…but so many people out there are as well.