When I was reading Gillian Flynn’s novel Gone Girl—sometime in early October, right before the movie came out—there was this one plot twist I was scared of reading, and as I got further and further into the book I got more and more scared. It’s kind of the main plot twist, and I’d read spoilers, but that was before I had any interest in reading Gone Girl, so my understanding of how it was going to work was hazy. “This is fun so far, but I’m not sure I’m going to be able to handle it when that happens,” I worried early on. “Oh my God,” I thought to myself, about a third of the way through, “that’s who NPH plays, oh no.” Then I got to a point where I was like, “Wait, maybe this will be okay. Maybe I can bring myself to read it if this is what happens.” And then I was like, “Oh, wow, that’s how it’s going to happen.” I was glad it was going to happen. I was like, “Hooray for Amy Dunne! What a brilliant and accomplished young woman.”
I hope I grow up to be this alert and well-coiffed!
I describe this process not to demonstrate how I developed Stockholm syndrome from drinking in too much of the brilliant prose of Gone Girl, like how you read Lolita and you’re like, “Ooh, I hope Humbert Humbert gets to make out with Lolita,” at least you are until he says something like, “You see, she had absolutely nowhere else to go.” I’m describing how my feelings about this plot twist shifted because that was how I realized that everyone had lied about it.
Well, they misrepresented it.
HERE IS WHERE I AM GOING TO SPOIL GONE GIRL: Continue reading
