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Summary
Amy Elliott Dunne, Diary Entry, April 21st, 2009
Amy writes about having dinner with two friends. As they’re finishing up, they all text their husbands to meet them for drinks after their lamb meatballs and arugula salads. The other women’s husbands promptly arrive, but Nick does not show or call. Amy's friends seem delighted, but Amy feels sorry for them, as she prides herself on not making Nick subject to her whims. Amy and Nick arrive home and briefly discuss their evenings. They share a drink, have sex, and fall asleep together, which Amy implies they do a lot. Amy smugly finishes her entry with “poor me.”
Nick Dunne, One Day Gone
Nick drinks all night, panicking about Amy, and wakes up with a hideous hangover. A police officer escorts him through his home to get clothes, and he sees a silver present Amy wrapped for him. He loses his temper when he’s not allowed to open it and is shooed out. Back at the police station, Amy’s parents Marybeth and Rand Elliot are waiting for him. They are the opposite of his own parents, especially his viciously misogynistic, abusive father. They hug him and prepare for a press conference about Amy.
Amy Elliott Dunne, Diary Entry, July 5th, 2010
Nick has skipped plans for their third anniversary, and he’s out drinking with coworkers who’ve been laid off. Amy writes that getting mad seems pathetic and feminine, but she can’t help it. Nick arrives home at 4 AM, reeking of booze. Amy can’t disguise that she’s upset, and Nick—who’s drunk and resentful and sad—loses his temper. Amy goes through the trash and finds strip club receipts and a woman’s number. She briefly panics that he’s cheating, but decides not to bring it up. She joins Nick in bed and they apologize simultaneously.
Nick Dunne, One Day Gone
The press conference is a shambles: Nick is awkward and stiff, and his ill-timed, reflexive smiles make him look suspiciously unbothered about his wife’s disappearance. Afterward, Detective Gilpin shows Nick the first clue of Amy’s anniversary treasure hunt. It’s a suggestive poem that leads them to the office at the junior college where Nick teaches. At Nick’s office, they find a letter from Amy, some lacy red panties, and a second clue. As he drives away, Nick makes a call on a disposable cell phone but no one picks up. Rand and Marybeth console Nick, reassuring him they don’t suspect him.
Amy Elliott Dunne, Diary Entry, August 23rd, 2010
Amy shuffles through Prospect Park in a miserable state. Nick got laid off soon after his coworkers and quickly slides into depression. Amy loses her job too, but Nick barely registers it, sniping at her that she’ll always have her family’s money. While trying to air out the fetid house, Amy discovers piles of luxury office wear that Nick has secretly bought. She gets angry, feeling provoked into nagging him when she hates to do that. Rand and Marybeth call and ask to visit, and ask Amy for $650,000 from her trust fund to help with their financial troubles. Amy feels awful, and immediately agrees to transfer the money.
Nick Dunne, Two Days Gone
The Days’ Inn in Carthage has donated a ballroom space as the “Find Amy Dunne” center. Detective Boney arrives with the volunteers and warns Nick about the strange people who sometimes show up to events like this and get too interested in the case, revealing themselves as potential suspects. She also cautions him against getting too close to the women helping, who sometimes get too friendly with grieving husbands. Boney asks Nick about Noelle Hawthorne, who says she’s friends with Amy. Nick hasn’t heard Amy mention her, and explains to Boney that people tend to latch onto Amy. Some of Nick’s high school friends show up to help with the investigation. One of them, a man named Stucks Buckley, mentions that there’s a group of angry, newly houseless men living in the abandoned mall that have been harassing people. Nick drives to join a search party, where a local woman named Shawna Kelly flirts with Nick and insists on a selfie.
Amy Elliott Dunne, Diary Entry, September 15th, 2010
Amy is in a roadside motel in Pennsylvania, on the way to Missouri. Nick’s mother has stage-four cancer and Nick insisted they move back home to care for her. Amy feels Nick has started to treat her like a problem, and that he’s furious she gave her parents back the trust fund money. They sell their beloved brownstone and pack a U-Haul with their remaining belongings. Amy’s parents cry when they leave, gifting Amy a family cuckoo clock she used to love.
Analysis
In this section of the novel the reader starts to see how tense and troubled Nick and Amy’s marriage has grown over the last five years. Amy's diary entry from April 21st, 2009 is all about how delighted her friends are that Nick doesn’t show up for her after their dinner. Amy's internal reaction, however, reveals a different story: she hates seeing “dancing monkeys” bend to the whims of their wives. She and Nick actually mock couples where wives control their husbands, suggesting that they see themselves as above that sort of cringeworthy behavior. Amy’s writing voice is gloating and superior as she describes her happy reunion with Nick after their evening apart, where she leaps into his arms and they immediately head upstairs and have sex. She describes the other married couples they get drinks with as grimly tolerating one another, while her own marriage is still exciting and fresh. She ends the entry by describing the end of their night in the following way: “Then comes sex and a stiff drink and a night of sleep in a sweet, exhausted rats’ tangle in our big, soft bed. Poor me.” She’s being sarcastic, but there’s also an overtone of desperation here. It’s clear that she does mind Nick’s failure to show up, but seems to be trying to convince herself otherwise. His failure to attend an event when expected and his total lack of apology for ignoring her show a disregard for Amy's expectations. This imbalance in power is a recurring theme throughout the novel, where Amy and Nick engage in a constant, silent struggle for dominance.
Amy’s concerns over Nick’s infidelity start to surface in her later diary entries, and they’re narrated in the same slightly frantic voice as the comments about not minding Nick ditching her for his friends. Amy's diary entry from July 5th, 2010 is pitifully sad, as she recounts her distress when Nick misses their anniversary and comes back reeking of alcohol. Instead of reuniting happily and falling into bed, there’s an argument and Nick snaps at her. It’s a marker of how far her trust in him has eroded when she can’t resist digging through the trash to look at his receipts for the night. She’s mortified to find stubs for two strip clubs, and a napkin with a woman’s name and number on it. Despite her initial panic, Amy decides not to confront Nick, trying to reassure herself that she knows he would never be unfaithful. This moment is emblematic of the underlying issues in their relationship that are now starting to surface. Although they quickly reconcile, Nick's dismissive and resentful attitude about being laid off begins to eat away at their happiness.
For Amy, the infidelity here isn’t just about potential sexual betrayal. She also feels let down by the emotional and psychological wedge that Nick’s depression and resentment shoves between them. Amy's decision to remain silent about her discoveries reflects her desire to maintain stability. If she doesn’t complain to Nick, she reasons, she can let this “rough patch” pass her by without becoming the sort of “nagging” woman she loathes.
Nick's demeanor at the press conference on the first day of Amy's disappearance seems to indicate that their marriage is beyond salvaging. He’s stiff and awkward, feeling scared and shell-shocked by the upheaval and unsure how he should act or speak. Nick is desperate to be liked and has a habit of smiling when he’s anxious, and his grins are misinterpreted by the media and the public. Because he’s handsome and his smile is expressive, people see images of him grinning and take them as an admission that he doesn’t care Amy is gone.
Financial pressures are also beginning to poke holes in Amy and Nick's relationship. Amy's diary entry from August 23rd, 2010 describes Nick's descent into a long-lasting funk after losing his job. This loss deals a crushing blow to Nick's fragile masculinity and sense of self-worth. Now that he isn’t working, they are forced to rely on Amy’s family money to survive, which he bitterly resents. Amy, who also loses her job, feels the strain as well, but Nick barely acknowledges that she’s upset. This financial strain is compounded when Amy's parents come over and beg to borrow $650,000 from her trust fund to alleviate their financial troubles. Amy agrees to transfer the money immediately, without consulting Nick, which only makes his feelings of resentment and inadequacy worse. This strain exacerbates existing issues in their marriage, heightening Amy’s frustration with Nick’s total lack of motivation, and Nick’s with Amy in general.
