Gone Girl

Amy describes a night out on the town with her girlfriends; each of their husbands is supposed to arrive for drinks at the end of the night. The other husbands arrive but Nick doesn’t show up, and he doesn’t call. She says that she doesn’t want to be one of those pathetic women who have to make their husbands prove their love through repeated shows of devotion, such as showing up for a drink at ladies’ night. Nick and Amy call such husbands the “dancing monkeys” (55).

Amy arrives home, and finds that Nick decided to go out with his friends instead of meeting up with her. Since Amy doesn’t want to have a dancing monkey for a husband, she is fine with this. She and Nick fall into bed with one another. 

Nick wakes up with a hangover. He goes home to get some clothes for a television broadcast later that day to appeal for help in finding Amy.

Nick goes back to the police station. Marybeth and Rand Elliott, Amy’s parents, are there. They greet Nick warmly. At the press conference, Nick smiles inappropriately and doesn’t know what to say about his wife. Rand Elliott steps forward and makes a statement about Amy and how much they want her back.

On their third wedding anniversary, Nick stays out with friends who have just been laid off from work rather than coming home to spend his anniversary with Amy. She is devastated, but refuses to be an angry, shrewish wife.

However, when Nick gets home, drunk, they argue. He brings up Amy’s money and says that she’s never had to struggle like the rest of the world. He’s worked since he was 14 years old, and he didn’t have creative writing camp and SAT tutors to help him succeed, like Amy did.

When Nick goes to bed, Amy rummages through Nick’s jacket and finds receipts from his night out charged to her credit card. She also finds a woman’s phone number. She is afraid suddenly that Nick has been unfaithful; she dreads being made a fool of or being tricked by Nick. She doesn’t know what to do, so she decides that she’s blowing things out of proportion. She goes to bed; she and Nick both say they are sorry.

Nick realizes that he has made a poor impression during the press conference. In addition to going over Amy and Nick’s home with teams of crime scene analysts, the police are searching the abandoned houses in the neighborhood; some of which are used by homeless squatters. Since the recession, the housing development Nick lives has been largely empty. The local mall has also gone bankrupt and has become a haven of the homeless and lawless, drug dealers and drug users. The police intend to search the mall as well.

Under police observation, Nick opens the first clue in his wife’s annual treasure hunt, knowing that the clues will make him look terrible. The first clue leads to his office at the university. Detective Gilpin goes with Nick to his office.

They find a pair of red panties, not Amy’s size, and the second clue. The second clue says that Nick is brilliant, and Nick lies to the detective, saying he doesn’t know what the clue means.

He makes a call on his disposable cell phone, but no one picks up.

Nick goes to the Elliotts’ hotel room. Marybeth asks Nick to solve all the treasure hunt clues, and Nick agrees that he will. His disposable cell phone rings while Nick is talking with the Elliotts, but he ignores it. Marybeth says that Nick should answer every call.

The Elliotts believe that the police should investigate Amy’s previous stalkers: a girl from high school named Hilary Handy, and Amy’s high school boyfriend Desi Collings. They do not believe Nick is involved with Amy’s disappearance, though they tell Nick the police believe the person responsible is “close to home” (82).

Amy reveals that Nick lost his job a month previously, and she lost her job that week. Amy’s job was writing quizzes for women’s magazines. Nick is drunk and aimless. He spends a lot of money on designer clothing he doesn’t care for, throwing them on the floor of the den still in their bags.

Amy’s parents come over. They have lost everything in bad investments. Furthermore, the house that they bought for Amy and Nick is in foreclosure, when Amy thought they had paid for it outright. They want Amy’s trust fund back, or at least most of it: $650,000. She gives them the money, which leaves her and Nick with almost nothing.

Nick joins a search for Amy at a wooded area near their home. The police ask him to stay at the entrance; he realizes that they want to keep him away from any potential crime scenes. One of the women volunteers, who is single, flirts with Nick and takes a picture of them with their faces pressed together.

Somewhere on the road in Pennsylvania, Amy writes that she and Nick are moving back to Nick’s hometown of Carthage, Missouri. Amy reports that Nick did not consult her before making this decision for the two of them. His mother is dying of cancer, and combined with his father’s Alzheimer’s, their needs are too much for Go to handle on her own. Amy writes that Nick never told her his father had Alzheimer’s. She worries that something unfixable may be wrong with her marriage, because Nick doesn’t tell her such things. She feels afraid and like she might disappear.