Gone Girl - The Perfect Sacrifice (Novel)

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Gone Girl "Gone Girl" is a 2012 thriller by Gillian Flynn . The novel was published in the United States by the Crown Publishing Group and quickly hit the New's bestseller list York Times .

The focus of the novel is the relationship drama of a married couple. According to the author, the main theme of the story is an exploration of the psychology and dynamics of a long-term relationship.

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After Nick and Amy Dunne are laid off by their employers in connection with the print media crisis , their marriage begins to run down. When Nick's mother is dying, the couple leaves New York City and moves to live with her in the province of North Carthage, Missouri . There, Nick opens a bar with the last of his wife's funds from an escrow account , which he runs with his twin sister Margo. The proceeds from the bar provide a living for the three Dunne family members, but Nick and Amy's relationship changes. Marriage is becoming increasingly dysfunctional. Amy misses her life in New York and struggles to come to terms with small town life.

On her fifth wedding anniversary, Amy disappears without a trace. Nick becomes the main suspect for a variety of reasons: He has a weak alibi, used her money to finance his bar, has credit card debts , is the beneficiary of a life insurance policy running on Amy, and appears in front of the camera to be conspicuously unemotional during the search. The police also found suspicious clues on his PC . Nick also receives strange calls.

In the first part of the novel, the reader is left in the dark about the actual actions and motives of the two protagonists: The story is told from the first-person perspective , alternately from the point of view of Nick and Amy. While Nick's narration takes place in the present tense , you learn from Amy from her diary entries in the past tense . The two stories differ greatly in their perception. Amy's portrayal of her marriage is much more positive than that of her husband, and Nick himself appears, from Amy's point of view, to be far more aggressive than he portrays himself.

In the second part of the novel it turns out that Nick is having an affair and Amy is still alive and hiding. She plans to use Nick by faking her death. Her diary is a forgery with which she wants to entangle Nick in the police investigation. Amy runs out of money and she is also robbed by guests in the motel where she is hiding. In her need, she seeks out her ex-boyfriend Desi Collings, with whom she can live for a while. Amy feels trapped with Desi, especially since he also makes her sexual advances. Amy kills Desi and returns to Nick, telling him that she has been kidnapped. Nick finds out that she is a murderer, but stays with her because she is expecting his child.

The book ends with more diary entries from Amy as she is about to give birth to her son, and tells of her abduction and imprisonment. Nick writes his own memoirs , telling of his wife's manipulative abilities and murderous intentions. But he deletes it when Amy informs him of her pregnancy .

Motifs

The motives in Gone Girl are dishonesty, the insidiousness of the media and the catastrophes caused by the economic crisis in the United States. The main characters lie to each other and thus also to the reader about their affairs and actions. Flynn said she wrote the book to show dishonesty and lies within a "marriage."

" Marriage is sort of like a long con, because you put on display your very best self during courtship, yet at the same time the person you marry is supposed to love your warts and all. But your spouse never sees those warts really until you get deeper into the marriage and let yourself unwind a bit. - Marriage is like a long scam, because initially you only show your best sides in your advertising, while the person you are marrying should love everything about you - including your warts. But your spouse won't really see those warts until the relationship becomes deeper and a little more relaxed. "

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The role of the media is also in focus. Nick appears guilty - he is prejudiced in the media even before a trial can begin. Flynn, a former employee of Entertainment Weekly, had her own daily work with how the media can infiltrate almost every aspect of a disappeared person's life. As the main suspect, Amy's husband is the victim of media incitement - as revenge, so to speak, of all women who have been wronged.

Parallels to the approach taken by the US television presenter Nancy Grace can be seen here. Author Jeff Giles pointed out that the novel plays heavily on reader expectations - expectations that are shaped by the media.

“ The first half of Gone Girl is a nimble, caustic riff on our Nancy Grace culture and the way in which 'The butler did it' has morphed into 'The husband did it'. - The first half of Gone Girl is a nimble, caustic riff on our Nancy Grace culture and on how the sentence 'It was the butler' became the sentence 'It was the husband'. "

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For the New York Daily News , the main concern of the novel is criticism of the media's quick prejudice.

" In a media society informed by Nancy Grace, when a wife goes missing, the husband murdered her. There's no need for a body to arrive at a verdict . - In the media society informed by Nancy Grace, it is enough for a wife to be reported missing - her husband killed her. You don't need a corpse to get a guilty verdict. "

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The San Francisco Chronicle commented:

" All the while, Flynn pokes smart fun at cable news, our collective obsession with social media and reality TV. - Meanwhile, Flynn is making fun of the cable channels, all of our obsessions with social media and reality TV . "

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Flynn wanted to make the entire society bankrupt as a result of the financial crisis from 2007 noticeable. Not only have the two protagonists lost their livelihood, they are moving to a small town that is characterized by unsaleable houses and failed companies. She told the Huffington Post :

" I wanted the whole thing to feel bankrupt ... I wanted it to really feel like a marriage that had been hollowed out in a city that had been hollowed out and a country that was increasingly hollowed out . - I wanted to convey a general feeling of bankruptcy ... it should feel like a hollowed out marriage, in a hollowed out city, in an increasingly hollowed out country. "

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The novel is something like the psychogram of a marriage that is determined not by love, but by neuroses and egomania . In the end, the story turns out to be the perfect crime.

Gillian Flynn and her characters

The two main characters of the novel Nick and Amy pose as typical DINKs : beautiful, attractive and successful. You live in the big city of New York, are career-conscious and have a promising future in the media industry ahead of you. Amy was marketed as a child by her parents, Rand and Marybeth Elliot, a psychologist couple, as "Amazing Amy," an idealized figure of the perfect child. Amy, like her parents, holds a master's degree in psychology and writes personality tests for magazine magazines. Nick, on the other hand, is a down to earth guy and comes from a small town in Missouri. Amy's wedding present to Nick was in the form of a scavenger hunt , the stations of which document events from the time they met.

The turning point begins when both lose their jobs and can no longer maintain their high standard of living in New York. They move to the deepest province of Missouri to live with Nick's parents, where they try to build a new life for themselves. "Amy will be fine" is the opinion of Nick Dunne, who "dragged" his wife into a completely unknown environment. Here, the relationship between the two has to prove itself in a new everyday marriage under different circumstances. After five years of marriage, Amy disappears, and everything indicates that Nick is the culprit.

The reader gets to know the two ambivalent protagonists mainly from their own portrayal. Nick appears unsympathetic and becomes entangled in a web of lies during the questioning by the police. Amy's notes, on the other hand, show a completely different picture and a different view of things. The reader is kept in the dark as to what the ultimate truth is.

Gillian Flynn processed her own character traits and experiences in her characters. Like Nick Dunne, she was an entertainment writer. Much like Nick, she was fired after doing her job for many years. Her own nervousness and restlessness, which she had felt during this time of unemployment, she processed into his character. When Flynn was asked how she could write so believably about the inner workings of a man, she replied that it was the masculine part of her personality. Her husband and friends would also help her understand how men think. Flynn's autobiographical essay I was not a nice little girl , written as an inner monologue , allows some parallels to the character of Amy Dunne. At that time she felt a slightly sadistic way and fed spiders with ants. The indoor game "Mean Aunt Rosie" enabled Gillian Flynn to exert negative influence on her cousins ​​(their caregivers). In her essay, the author argues that women generally do not recognize or repress their negative traits, while men usually exaggerate the meanness of their childhood.

The author and her work

Gillian Flynn is from Kansas City, Missouri and lived in the major cities of Chicago and New York City . She worked as a senior television critic for Entertainment Weekly magazine for ten years . Her first two novels, Cry Baby. Sharp cuts (2006) and Dark Places. Dangerous Memories (2009) won awards and USA successes. Flynn's third novel, Gone Girl , was published in 2012 and sparked a huge media hype. The novel, which has sold over 3 million copies, has long been number one on the New York Times bestseller list. The basic idea for Gone Girl arose from Flynn's need to fathom the secret of marriage.

"I liked the idea of ​​telling a marriage as a kind of 'he says, she says' story, a story of two storytellers that the reader shouldn't trust."

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly , Flynn said that their works by Zoë Heller's Notes on a Scandal ( Notes on a Scandal ) and Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf ( Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? ) Were affected. The end of Gone Girl is from Rosemary's Baby and the sentence “Hey, the devil's in the world, and guess what? Mom kind of likes him. ” ( “ Hey, the devil was born and guess what? Mommy loves him! ” ). Flynn didn't want to commit to one genre . Other works that influence her style are the mystery novels by Laura Lippman , Karin Slaughter , George P. Pelecanos , Dennis Lehane and Harlan Coben . But realistic, contemporary writers such as Joyce Carol Oates , Margaret Atwood , TC Boyle and Arthur Phillips have had a lasting influence on their work.

Shape and style

" At first I waited for the police in the kitchen, but the pungent smell of the coked kettle filled my throat and made me want to vomit, so I strolled out onto the porch, sat on the top step, and tried to calm me down. I kept dialing Amy's cell phone, but each time only the voicemail answered and Amy asserted on the Quickclip frequency that she would call back immediately. She always did. But now three hours had passed, I had left five messages and Amy hadn't answered . "

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The representations of the first-person narrators are partly in the present tense, partly in the past tense. Amy's portrayal takes the form of diary entries. The novel fits into several genres such as mystery , suspense - thriller and detective story . The Reader's Digest reviewer thinks the book is much more than just a detective story, but a masterful psychological thriller. The Chicago Tribune notes that Gone Girl uses various elements of the style typical of a thriller - such as creating suspicion, unmasking secrets, and clever diversionary maneuvers. In Gone Girl , however, these stylistic elements have a different meaning than they usually do in thriller. “While serving their usual functions, they also do much more, launching us into an unnerving dissection of the fallout of failed dreams” ( “ Using their usual functions, however, they do a lot more and lead us to a disturbing analysis of failed dreams. " ) In the New York Times, Janet Maslin writes that the" ice-sharp "novel begins like a standard edition of the crime novel industry, but in the end all initial premises are questioned.

reception

Reviews

As the most successful novel by Gillian Flynn, which sold well above average with over 2.7 million copies in digital and print form, it was highly praised by critics and writers such as Kate Atkinson and Karin Slaughter . In the newspapers The New Yorker , The New York Times , Time , Publishers Weekly , Entertainment Weekly , Chatelaine, People Magazine and USA Today , the novel received excellent reviews. Gone Girl was number one on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers List for eight weeks and on National Public Radio's Hardcover Fiction Bestsellers List for 26 weeks. According to Dave Itzkoff he is one of the greatest literary phenomena since the trilogy Fifty Shades of EL James , which also dates back to 2012.

Scott Smith wrote: “It's like Gillian Flynn mixed us a martini, but with battery acid instead of vermouth - and yet it tastes really good. 'Gone Girl' is delicious and intoxicating and at the same time pleasantly vicious. "

While the novel was consistently received positively in the Anglo-Saxon-speaking world, some German critics saw Gone Girl more cautiously. The web portal Krimi-Couch titled Gone Girl with scenes from a marriage . A story that could not be clearly integrated into either the crime or the thriller genre. The intensely described marriage problems, which would not affect every reader, and the fact that both protagonists were not popular were criticized. Gone Girl is "good, varied entertainment literature, but far from a thriller." The reader's empathy for the main characters is a basic prerequisite for feeling tension.

Other opinions in German-speaking countries range from “Gillian Flynn delivers the thriller blockbuster of the year with 'Gone Girl'” , “brilliant, witty and bitterly evil” , “ brilliant crime thriller, razor-sharp psychogram with breathtaking twists and turns. US bestseller! " To " Gillian Flynn's 'Gone Girl - The Perfect Victim' reminds me of Patricia Highsmith at her best. With this book, Gillian Flynn catapults himself onto the short list of authors who have managed the feat of creating an extremely exciting story with terrifyingly believable characters. "

Achievements and Awards

  • New York Times: "Janet Maslin's 10 Favorite Books of 2012"
  • Entertainment Weekly: Gillian Flynn as "Entertainer of the Year"
  • People Magazine: "Best Books of the Year"
  • Edgar Allan Poe Award : Nominated in the group "Best Novel"
  • Barnes & Noble : "Best Book of the Year"
  • Macavity Award : Nominated in the group "Best Mystery Novel"
  • Anthony Award : Nominated in the group "Best Novel"
  • Bailey's Women's Prize: Nominated in the group "Best Fiction"
  • Strand Critics Award: Nominated

filming

The novel serves as a template for a film adaptation under the same title, which was released in German cinemas on October 2, 2014. The director is David Fincher . The star cast consists of Ben Affleck as Nick Dunne, the character of Amy Elliott Dunne is played by Rosamund Pike and Neil Patrick Harris plays Desi Collings. Film producer Leslie Dixon read the manuscript of the book back in 2011 and made actress Reese Witherspoon aware of the story's potential as a template for a film adaptation. The shooting took place in Cape Girardeau (Missouri) and Los Angeles .

expenditure

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Pam Lambert: "Unhappily Ever After". Publisher's Weekly, April 2, 2012. accessed on December 24, 2012 ( Memento of the original from May 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / magazinesinfo.com
  2. ↑ "raving tabloid TV Fury"
  3. ↑ Entertainment Weekly, "Gone Girl," by Jeff Giles, June 6, 2012
  4. ↑ Book Review "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn - Cleverly plotted thriller about a not-so-golden couple keeps you guessing, by Sherryl Connelly, June 3, 2012, New York Daily News
  5. ^ "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn, Review, SF Gate News, June 10, 2012
  6. ↑ The Huffington Post on Gillian Flynn
  7. ↑ Lovely Books, book review
  8. ↑ a b c d Crime Couch, Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl - The perfect victim
  9. ↑ Flynn's 'Gone Girl' poised to be summer thriller, The Huffington Post, by Caryn Rousseau, June 22, 2012
  10. ↑ Gillian Flynn Homepage, To the Reader ( Memento of the original from June 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gillian-flynn.com
  11. ↑ "I was not a nice little girl. My favorite summertime hobby was stunning ants and feeding them to spiders. "
  12. ↑ See "The Common Aunt Rosie"
  13. ↑ Original Essays, I Was Not a Nice Little Girl ... by Gillian Flynn, www.powells.com ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.powells.com
  14. ↑ "I liked the idea of ​​marriage told as a he-said, she-said story, and told by two narrators who were perhaps not to be trusted.", Gone Girl represents a much needed departure from Bridget Jones, by Katy Brand, Daily Telegraph, UK, 25th March 2013
  15. ↑ Arthur Phillips, born April 23, 1969, US writer, works: Prague (2002), The Egyptologist (2004), Angelica (2007) and The Song is You (2009)
  16. ↑ Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl - The perfect victim. Fischer Scherz, S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-502-10222-9 , p. 48.
  17. ↑ "More than just a crime novel, Gone Girl is an astute and thought-provoking look into two complex personalities. Don't miss this masterful psychological thriller that lives up to its hype. "Reader's Digest, Still Worth the Hype: Gillian Flynn's 'Gone Girl' by Amy Reilly
  18. ^ "A marriage gone missing", Printers Row Journal review of "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn, Chicago Tribune Lifestyle, by Amy Gutman, June 28, 2012
  19. ^ The Lies That Buoy, Then Break a Marriage, Book of the Times, The New York Times, by Janet Maslin, May 29, 2012
  20. ^ New Two-Book Deal for 'Gone Girl' Author Gillian Flynn, New York Times Blog, David Itzkoff, November 15, 2012
  21. ↑ http://www.chatelaine.com
  22. ↑ NPR, National Public Radio's Hardcover Fiction Bestseller List
  23. ↑ What is All the Fuss about Gone Girl ?, Mod Manuscript, January 25, 2013
  24. ↑ Scott Smith quoted on literaturtipps.de
  25. ↑ Mystery of the Month: When Hipsters Hate, SPIEGEL Online
  26. ↑ Focus
  27. ↑ Joy, September 2013.
  28. ^ Review from Karin Slaughter
  29. ↑ Janet Maslin's 10 Favorite Books of 2012, New York Times
  30. ↑ Entertainment Weekly, Gillian Flynn: 2012 Entertainers of the Year
  31. ^ The bestselling phenomenon, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, finally in paperback, The Crown Publishing Group
  32. ↑ Edgar Nominees
  33. ^ Barnes and Noble Best Book of the year
  34. ^ Mystery Readers Inc.
  35. ↑ Bochercon World Mystery Convention
  36. ↑ Anthony Awards 2013
  37. ^ Bailey's Women's Prize for Fiction
  38. ^ PR Web, Nominees for the 2012 Strand Critics Awards Announced
  39. ↑ Homepage of Gillian Flynn: Gone Girl ( Memento of the original from June 25, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / gillian-flynn.com
  40. ↑ A Surprise Hit Spawns a Movie Deal, The Wall Street Journal, Life and Culture, by Steffanie Cohen, July 19, 2012