Gone Girl

Nick Dunne reminisces about his wife Amy and their marriage, narrating events after they have occurred. He wakes up at 6 a.m. on the morning of his fifth wedding anniversary. He hears his wife making breakfast downstairs. He reports that he has made a decision and implies that his wife won’t like it. He is nervous as he stands in the doorway watching her. He remarks that Amy is often angry with him, and she resents having had to move to his hometown after both of them lost their jobs and his mother fell ill with cancer. They met and married while living in Amy’s hometown, New York City.

Nick arrives very late at work. He and his twin sister, Go, own a bar, cleverly called The Bar. They borrowed the money to buy the bar—$80,000—from Amy. Nick is filled with dread and guilt.

Each of Amy’s chapters in Part One is an entry in her diary. Amy cheerfully reports meeting Nick at a party. They hit it off immediately. They are both writers: both are intelligent and witty. Nick is extremely handsome and charming. They leave the party together and Nick kisses Amy as he walks her home.

Nick walks into The Bar. Go is working, washing glasses. Nick shares that he is having trouble with Amy and that today is their fifth wedding anniversary. He has not bought her a gift yet. He dreads the anniversary treasure hunt that Amy cooks up every year, in which she leaves him a series of clues leading to his present. Nick never lives up to Amy’s expectations and every yeah he needs her to finish the hunt. The clues are always based on Amy’s memories of their relationship over the past year.

Go and Amy do not get along but Go and Nick are extremely close, and Go encourages Nick to laugh at Amy.

The bar phone rings. A neighbor, Carl, tells Nick that the front door of his house is open, and the cat is outside. Nick rushes home to find his wife gone, leaving a dress half ironed and the teakettle burned up on the stove, while the living room is in disarray, with glass smashed and an ottoman overturned.

Amy and Nick reconnect after a period of eight months when Nick approaches Amy on the street. They are together from this point on: they are in love.

Amy reports that her parents are still completely in love and that she grew up an only child, a witness to their perfect marriage. Her parents are famous, and wealthy, for writing a successful children’s book series based on Amy’s life called Amazing Amy.

Nick calls the police and waits restlessly for them to arrive; he is nervous and frightened. After seeing the living room, the officers call in detectives. Detectives Rhonda Boney and Jim Gilpin come to investigate. Nick answers the detectives’ questions while his internal narrative makes clear thoughts that he is lying to the police. For example, he lies and says he made a dinner reservation at a local restaurant for dinner that night.

Nick remembers his courtship and marriage to Amy: everything seemed magical, and they were very much in love. Amy and her parents are very rich, because the Amazing Amy books have been so successful.

Nick and Amy have been married for a year: Amy describes the clues she used in the anniversary treasure hunt. They are completely in love. They live in a brownstone that her parents gave them as a wedding present. Both work at writing jobs. Amy loves her husband and her life in New York City.