So Happy

We all know the story. Boy meets girl. They fall in love. They get married. Happily ever after right?
 

Wrong!

Murder, deceit, betrayal…these lurk just under the surface of even the most perfect marriage. At least that’s what we learn from a Domestic Noir book like Gone Girl. Domestic Noir, Suburban Noir, Chick Noir? Whatever you want to call it, it means the same thing: A seemingly perfect couple, but something goes wrong down the line. Maybe an affair but more likely (or at least in addition) a murder, a kidnapping, a dismemberment. A creepy dark atmosphere. And of course a disturbing plot twist. It’s what we (quite ironically) live for.   

Gone Girl is an intriguing example of this fascinating new genre. Amy and Nick. The perfect couple. Attractive and wealthy (at least for a while…) this should be a tale of their happy ever after. But something drastically wrong has happened in their marriage. Only we don’t know what. All we know is that Amy is gone. And who is the better suspect than the handsome, sexist, jealous, brooding, smiles at really bad times, husband. Suspense drives this novel forward. We just have to know what’s going on. Did Nick murder Amy? Who is Amy at all? Is she the devoted and determined wife we see in her diary entries? Or is she the manipulative and conniving woman that Nick portrays? In a marriage, especially one like Nick and Amy’s, it is almost impossible for anyone except those two people to grasp what is going in their relationship, and even they have different views. The book certainly has a creepy atmosphere in the unreliable nature of Nick's narration. As for the twist? Only time will tell, but I'm sure it will be deliciously awful. There are dark secrets yet to be revealed. And that just makes it, even more, a Domestic Noir story. The conflict lives close to home. A perfect couple that should be so happy instead are not. Among the two people that should place their trust in one another, lies and mayhem arise.