The Most Influential Thriller of the Century So Far

The world of modern thrillers has two just eras: Before Gone Girl and After Gone Girl. Gillian Flynn’s 2012 instant blockbuster didn’t invent the unreliable narrator, of course, but it broke the mold and ushered in a new era of domestic thrillers focused on toxic relationships and female antiheroes. Often imitated, never duplicated—to say a book is “the next Gone Girl” is to spoil it from the outset—Gone Girl continues to put up big numbers. Estimated total sales exceed 20 million copies. The novel comes in at #9 on Amazon’s best-selling books of all time, right behind The Handmaid’s Tale and just ahead of Fifty Shades of Grey. It’s ranked #22 on Goodreads’s most popular books of all time. New York Times readers voted it into #49 on the 100 best books of the century so far. (It did not make the critics’ top 100.) Flynn didn’t just change publishing with the ultimate unlikable female narrator. Main character Amy Dunne’s legendary “Cool Girl” speech entered the discourse and has become a fixture in feminist media analysis. 🎧 Hear our conversation about this groundbreaking novel and its continuing impact on Zero to Well-Read. Unusual Suspects Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive new...