Gone Girl. The God of All Thrillers. If you’re one of the ten or so people on the planet who haven’t read it yet, or seen the excellent movie, you are in for a treat. Why do we love it so much? It’s intelligent, it’s riveting but the true genius of it lies in the strong female protagonist, Amy. What a beautiful, toxic creation. Sure, she’s manipulative, she’s diabolical but you gotta give her some respect. Most women, when faced with a disintegrating relationship and a cheating spouse, would have a bit of a spit then walk off nursing their heartbreak, their wounded pride. Not our Amy. She puts into place a tightly constructed and merciless plan, months in the making, to frame her hapless husband Nick for her disappearance and eventual murder. Whatever you think of her, you must take your hat off to her organisational abilities. And when the plan changes, she adapts, because she’s flexible and cool under pressure. What a woman. If only she wasn’t such a psychopath, utterly devoid of conscience. But she’s not totally without a sense of self-awareness: “I do know that framing your husband for your murder is beyond the pale of what an average woman might do. But it’s so very necessary…..I think this experience will make him a better person. Or at least a sorrier one. Fucker.”
Amy is such good company, and you’re breathless to know what happens next, whether she will get away with it. So much of her thinking about relationships resonates – how guys always want Cool Girl, and you can pretend to be Cool Girl for a while but really, Cool Girl doesn’t exist. How she and Nick start off laughing at other people’s relationships, casting the men as ‘dancing monkeys’, while slowly but surely their own relationship slides into bitter despair and cliche.
And the hapless husband Nick. Somehow it’s impossible to think of him without adding the word ‘hapless’ before ‘husband’. He’s a shambolic, porn-and-sports loving dude who gets by on his charm and is well aware he’s not half as smart as Amy. At first, she brings out the best in him but later he reverts to form and they disappoint one another incessantly. I love that the narration begins with his voice: we assume he’s a decent guy in a difficult relationship. When he reveals his affair with a young, clingy student there’s a palpable sense of our disappointment in him. Still, we’re like his awesome sister, Go – on his side as he is relentlessly battered by dire revelation after revelation, orchestrated by the Amazing Amy. We know he didn’t do it, but geez, it looks bad for him. And the ending – how I love the ending. No need to spoil it for you but, as the hapless husband Nick’s lawyer says- “You two are the most fucked-up people I have ever met, and I specialise in fucked-up people.”
So far, Gone Girl has no equal, despite a whole raft of pretenders marketed as the next Gone Girl. Pah! This one is the only perfect, infallible thriller.
