Gone Girl and Infertility
I finished Gone Girl, and now I need to comment on something that bothers me in books. When I mentioned it to someone else this week, they weren’t bothered by this type of plot hiccup at all, so I guess I’m writing this to gauge how the general public feels. But I don’t want you to read this post if there is any chance you will read Gone Girl in the future because what I’m about to say will ruin one of the twists in the plot. So, click away if you haven’t already read Gone Girl (or feel free to stay if you have no intention of ever reading the book).
I’m giving you another chance to click away.
And then shoving the meat of this post even further down the page with a series of asterisks.
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Good, everyone left should be people who have either read Gone Girl already or have no intention to do so. First and foremost, I thought the writing in this book was brilliant. It is a gorgeous, gorgeous book. I was interested in both characters, and when the twist came in the middle of the book, I was totally taken by surprise. I thought Noelle’s husband had killed her. I was obviously a little… off.
That said, when we first got a mention of fertility treatments on page 294, I was momentarily distracted. We’re told that Amy lies about how long they’ve been trying in order to jump directly to fertility treatments. Okay, I could buy that. I mean, yes, they’ve just gotten to Missouri, and it sounds as if they don’t have health insurance since neither one has a job. But I’m willing to suspend disbelief and go along with the idea that they just happened to find a doctor to refer them immediately to a clinic, and that clinic in St. Louis had an opening.
I was even willing to ignore the fact that we’re told nothing about any testing that was done. They just jump immediately into treatments. Sort of.
For some unknown reason, Nick makes three donations of his sperm, presumably for an IUI since the sperm is being frozen, not tested. I have no idea why he’s not being tested before they start treatments, but he’s not since we’re clearly told that the clinic is saving these samples (and apparently notifying him after a year that they will destroy the samples if he doesn’t pay the storage fee.)
We can assume it’s for an IUI since we also know that there is nothing wrong with Amy since she’s lying. Which means that I can’t imagine a doctor telling her to skip straight to IVF without at least trying an IUI or two since she is young-enough and their infertility would be unexplained. Plus, in a moment, we’ll read that Amy has pills (Metformin? Clomid?) which would align with an IUI but be highly unusual for an IVF cycle. So Nick is going in and banking sperm for an IUI (fine, maybe IVF… it really doesn’t make a difference in this case).
Why?
What doctor would prefer to use frozen sperm instead of fresh? The only people I know who have ever banked their own sperm for treatments they’re currently doing are people who are deployed or who work in two separate states. Why would a doctor purposefully choose a method of insemination that has a slightly lower success rate?
Isn’t that odd? Did anyone else have a situation where their partner went to the clinic long before they were ensconced in treatments and for no reason froze three sperm samples for future use? What clinic wants to use storage space on a current patient who has not actually scheduled treatments? Please correct me if I’m wrong and you know of a time when a clinic has suggested that a person bank their sperm even though they would be available to be there physically the day of the IUI or retrieval.
Even with all that strangeness, I was willing to suspend that disbelief (I’m a forgiving reader) again until we got to the part where Amy has a vague series of pills she is supposed to be starting on any random day of her cycle. Is it Metformin? Clomid? Why wouldn’t these drugs be timed to her cycle? Why are there so many pills in the bottle? Let’s assume it’s Metformin because there are more than 5 pills in the bottle.
“I visited the room on three separate occasions — they like to have a lot of backup — while Amy did nothing. She was supposed to begin taking pills, but she didn’t, and then she didn’t some more. She was the one who’d turn over her body to the baby, so I postponed nudging her for a few months, keeping an eye on the pill bottle to see if the level went down.”
So… they have a clinic in St. Louis that is collecting sperm from Nick without anything scheduled for Amy, and she is taking an oral medication willy-nilly as part of her treatments?
I was distracted reading this passage, but I was able to set it aside because it was a small blip. I don’t expect Gillian Flynn to know the intricacies of fertility treatments, fertility drugs, or clinic protocols if the only place they’re being mentioned in the book is this tiny description of their life.
Really, I barely even remembered how much it bothered me until I got to the end of the book. And then, when the banked sperm became the plot twist, I put down the book hugely disappointed.
I was willing to suspend disbelief when I thought it was a tiny blip in the plot line, just a research mistake. It would only be noticeable to someone who had done treatments. So I was willing to let it go. Fiction gets things wrong all the time; my own books included. And infertility is complicated.
BUT.
When that tiny moment becomes the turning point of the book, the spotlight idea that changes everything, then I get pissed off when it isn’t accurate. You’re hinging the entire book on fertility treatments: do the work to make them believable. Because frankly, it isn’t believable that your husband, who owns a bar and has no travel on the horizon, would need to bank sperm rather than give the donation in the morning before the IUI. It isn’t believable that she is given a bottle of pills that she can start whenever she wishes. Oh, and she doesn’t even need any monitoring to boot.
Because with that, I also didn’t believe that Nick would ignore his wife’s actions just for a child. I never believed he was so in love with the idea of a child — mostly because it’s just peppered in there every once in a while. You never see him interact with a kid in the book and get a sense that he’d really love to be a dad. We’re just told that he wants it on one or two occasions, and then we’re expected to believe that he’s planning to live the rest of his life with Amy and this child she is using to “trap” him (though, of course, we’re told that he wants to be trapped if it’s trapped-by-child). And the final twist is that Amy is obviously plotting something with those final lines.
So I left the book with mixed feelings. I loved the writing. I loved the twists (except for the infertility-related ones). I loved the plot and the pacing. The book changed my mood. It affected how I felt. I loved it.
Until the very end.
I am completely willing to forgive mistakes related to infertility when it is a tiny, throwaway part of the plot line. But when infertility is front and center as part of the plot, as it is in Then Came You by Jennifer Weiner or Gone Girl, I find that I can’t enjoy the story when I’m distracted by the inaccuracies.
How do you feel when infertility (or treatments) rears its head in fiction? And did the inclusion of fertility treatments ring true for you as a reader when you were ensconced in Gone Girl?
By the way, Gone Girl is the November book for the GRAB(ook) Club if you want to talk about it with others. I still have plenty more to say.
37 comments
Ugh! Do you realize how hard this is for me?!!? I very much want to read Gone Girl so haven’t read your post, but am so intrigued that I really want to read it, but don’t want to ruin the book for myself…okay, book marking this page & heading to Amazon to download Gone Girl!!
I kind of felt Gone Girl was sooo unrealistic you had to suspend all belief in everything. I know people who HATED the ending. I loved the ending. Because how else could it end? I loved the last line actually. My favorite last line ever. The infertility treatments were ridiculous, but everything Amy did was ridiculous.
It irritates me so much when infertility is a major plot line in a novel and handled poorly, incorrectly or implausibly. It did irritate me in GG – felt very contrived. I’m glad you mentioned Weiner’s Then Came You. After reading a few reviews, I was concerned, so I tweeted her to ask if she had fine research by talking to surrogates or intended parents. She replied that she hadn’t. I think that’s very irresponsible & damaging b/c popular authors and books will help shape the public’a impression of a topic and when the public reads implausible or blatantly incorrect facts about IF, it can cause a lot of damage.
I haven’t read it, hadn’t even heard of it until you mentioned it yesterday (I’m so looking forward to the end of The Great Blur so I can return to a bookstore and actually look at the books and not just play with the toys), but I can address freezing sperm in advance of a procedure! IF the RE had tested the husband’s sperm and found that his count was on the low end of normal they may recommend freezing a sample a week ahead of the procedure just in case the fresh sample day of the IUI/IVF is low as well. That way they have a safety net and the cycle isn’t wasted.
Metformin can be started regardless of cycle day, but as you well know, it wouldn’t be the only medication for a cycle because it doesn’t do anything for controlling the timing of ovulation or improving ovulation. So, yeah, that would bug the heck out of me too because even three years on I still remember my carefully color coded calendars and all the alarms I had set on my phone to make sure I took my pills and shots at the correct times in the correct doses.
Maybe the intention is to show that a character who is faking a need for infertility treatments has no need to follow an accurate procedure and the husband doesn’t know any better or doesn’t want to?
I have read the book and agree, looovveed the writing style. I highly recommend her other two books. But beware they are a bit more dark and… twisted I guess you could say then Gone Girl.
As for the infertility treatments, I think you keep looking at it that Amy was telling the truth about the treatments or pills etc. Honestly, I think that Nick wasn’t involved very much at all in their relationship and didn’t pay attention to the details. My impression was that Amy tricked him in this aspect as much as in the other points of the story. I’m not sure how obviously. lol But my impression was that if the woman is clever enough to do everything else she did, there’s no reason she couldn’t pull the wool over his eyes on this particular point also.
Absolutely, I should have added that as another possibility: saving a sample in case the person can’t produce under the pressure of that day. BUT they have no treatments scheduled. He’s just storing sperm there. Under the doctor’s orders. With no scheduled IUI.
Isn’t THAT odd?
I mean, yes, if they knew the IUI was going to be during that cycle if all looked fine (though she also doesn’t need to do any monitoring in the book), then I could see him banking his sperm. But how many clinics would tell a patient, “hey guys, why don’t you bank your sperm here just in case you ever get your act together and schedule some treatments?” I just cracked myself up writing that.
I don’t know, I just got the impression that Nick was a clueless boob, who mostly just did what his wife wanted because he felt so guilty for uprooting her. He didn’t question – he just followed directions. I don’t have to suspend much disbelief for that one. Add into that, Amy was a facile liar and could have told any kind of story to either party (husband or fertility doctor) to pave the way for her plan. Sometimes I fill in the plot for myself if I don’t like the holes, I suppose. 🙂
I guess I object to infertility story lines when they get in-depth and inaccurate. Since this is just a side detail to wrap the ending up nicely – I don’t think accuracy is essential to the story.
Interesting post. Other reasons for a man to freeze sperm include issues of pending cancer treatments. In my own IVF – ICSI experience we did bank a week before in case they found few during my biopsy. Hard to say without knowing more about the character. But I agree when you live this stuff, inaccuracies are distracting.
Don’t forget, Amy’s a big fat liar. She was probably lying to her doctor too! Maybe her told the doc he needed to bank sperm before his chemotherapy! And I definitely believe there are maverick doctors out there who will do whatever the patient says. (Just like there are mavericks in every field.)
To the larger question, the screwy handling of infertility did not bother me personally, bc the book is not about infertility, it’s a mystery about a pathological liar with an unreliable narrator for a husband. It WOULD bother me in a different sort of novel, in which a character truly was coping with infertility.
Good post, definitely worth thinking about!
I read the book I want to say early last summer or late last spring…so right before I began fertility treatments. As a result, that part didn’t make much sense to me (and I had no idea how wrapped up in this world I would become). I will say that the book was soooo out there and so ridiculous that nothing surprises me with it. Most of the things that happened in the book are inconceivable, but regardless I loved it and couldn’t put it down.
Interesting. This didn’t bother me or distracting me much from the rest of the story, and I have plenty of experience with IF treatments. I really liked the twists and the story overall.
I guess pressure would be one thing for storing sperm, as you already mentioned. Other than that, I think Amy could have come up with any lie to both her husband and doctor to get her plan in place.
I read that book and – I don’t even remember that there were fertility treatment discussions. Isn’t that weird? I guess my brain just glossed over it.
Yeah, it bugged me too.
Mel, from an author standpoint (you are one and clearly I am not) I’ve always wondered who has the task to make sure the facts are true and accurate when they should be. So if you are talking about a subject or geographical area you know nothing about, is it on you as an author to do the research? Or is there a team of editors that fact-check and investigate subject matter for you to make sure you don’t look like an idiot?
Inconsistencies and weirdness like this in any book really distracts me. Either make it all up (it is fiction after all) or if it’s a documented process that you can’t skirt by on, get it vetted before it lands in a book.
I guess that’s why authors are always told, “write what you know”, eh?
I, too, read this book last summer before I was tested and started infertility treatments, so the description of what they did meant nothing to me. I agree with the other commenters – Amy is a liar, and she’s a big believer in covering all the bases and the long con. I think you can make the leap that she lied to her doctor – said that Nick traveled a lot or Nick had cancer – who knows. So, for that reason, it didn’t bother me that Gillian Flynn probably did not properly research the subject. But in general, yes, it really annoys me when books, TV, and movies get this stuff wrong.
Shelli–
It’s a little bit of both. It’s definitely the job of the author to make sure that the details are accurate. It’s the job of the author not to make up things willy-nilly or assume what you don’t know. A good editor will point out inconsistencies that he/she finds, but if your editor has no background knowledge to even know something is amiss, they would understandably let it stand in the book without comment.
Non-fiction is different. Good non-fiction from a reputable publisher has been vetted and fact-checked. If a layperson writes a book, it should be vetted by an expert. For instance, if a layperson wrote a book about weight loss, they’d want the book vetted by a nutritionist to make sure the information the author is giving the reader is accurate. Are there publishers that cut corners and don’t fact check or vet books? Of course. But when the process works, there is someone marking up the manuscript and asking for footnotes to back up statements in the text.
Okay, everyone, when did Amy lie to the doctor? They drove there together. They had the appointment together. If she had said he was doing chemo, you don’t think the doctor would have brought that up during the appointment? And if they didn’t discuss it then, wasn’t it a red flag for the doctor if she called him later and said, “oh, by the way, can my husband bank sperm because of X?” And then, all the times he returns to the office on his own (3 times), no one says anything to him that makes him wonder what the hell they’re talking about?
I know I’m being picky — very, very picky. But Amy is held up as a brilliant planner (and by extension, Gillian Flynn becomes a brilliant planner). I want to see a brilliant plan so I can think of Amy as a brilliant planner. It needs to be an air-tight plan. Because we’re told by the end of the book that it’s so air-tight that the detectives can’t break into it to prove that she’s guilty. But here we are, breaking into it. So as a reader, I also cease to believe the detectives couldn’t figure out how to prove that she framed him.
I completely agree. And it seems to creep into books in so many places and is rarely accurate. Loved Gone Girl but found myself shaking my head at the infertility plot as well.
It annoyed me too, though to a lesser degree having not gone through these procedures myself. The twist itself I didn’t really like either, but the writing was good enough and the book was enough of a page-turner for me that I was more forgiving in the end.
It is annoying when a book gets something wrong, but you are right that unless someone has done enought research, it would be pretty easy to do. It is also annoying that that became a major plot line.
I could see some doctors suggesting to bank sperm ahead of time. Althought perhaps not without a scheduled treatement. My husband did it for our IVF, although not our IUI. The thought was that there was so much invested in the IVF, that what if he couldn’t ‘perform’ that day or if something happened (he was sick, etc.) at the last minute, then we could still go ahead with the fertilization.
I was utterly annoyed by Gone Girl. Yes, because of the bizarre and inaccurate descriptions of fertility treatments but also because I just hated Amy the whole time. Couldn’t get over it. Anywho…
Does anybody know of any good fiction that accurately depicts infertility? Not looking for someone’s autobiographical account of IVF – plenty of experience of my own – but IF as a subplot.
YES YES YES! This. Exactly this. This was my major issue with this book and what left me with a bad taste in my mouth. So incredibly amazing in so many ways, but the infertility stuff just ruined it for me. And until I read your post today, no one else I have discussed this with has seemed bothered in the least.
I often get irritated by fertility/infertility plots, usually because they are so often used in a negative light. And I can be quite irrational about inaccuracies in books – not just about fertility/infertility. There’s a Kate Atkinson book (the name escapes me) which is narrated by the main character, and this starts at conception. No. Correction, it starts at the moment of orgasm (as if conception occurs immediately). It infuriated me so much I couldn’t read beyond the first chapter. The rest of my bookclub laughed – they loved the book. Years later, I still haven’t read it.
On to Gone Girl – I read it recently, and really liked it – till the infertility plot twist (why is the woman always the villain when there is an infertility plot – whether the infertility is real or not?), and the ending – which in ways I hated, and in ways I admired simply because it was not what I expected. I still gave it four stars on Goodreads.
I found the book annoying as hell, and particularly the IF bit. I wasn’t put off by the freezing part, maybe because my DH had had a failed vasectomy reversal and a surgical retrieval done at the same time, and of course frozen, so we never dealt with fresh or the need to provide a sample (other than assessing the reversal’s effect, which as I say was non-existent). BUT. BUT. My DH was effectively irrelevant to treatment, I did not need him there. I did both one egg retrieval and one embryo transfer (different cycles; that embryo transfer was the one that worked) without him present. But. I ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS had to have his signed, recent consent on file. And, his testing ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS had to be up-to-date (which — hello! As I complained to the fertility clinic was irrelevant since the sample itself had been frozen for YEARS. My DH could have been dead. But I’d have had to document that, too, I’m quite sure). So, no.
I was fine with the ending, honestly I didn’t take it to be so much about “the kid” as about “avoiding allowing Amy to screw up someone else’s life.” Though whether he was in any way capable enough to prevent that …
@2dognite the one book that springs to mind is an early Daniel Silva one, not one of the Gabriel Allon series. Mark of the Assassin, I think. It *does* have IVF as a subplot and as I recall does a decent job of capturing the experience of an infertility diagnosis and subsequent treatment. His Allon series also deals extensively (and well, I think) with issues of the loss of family members, literally and less so, and some of the later ones involve some infertility/loss though not treatment (as I recall).
I read GONE GIRL with my book club before it hit the shelves with an advanced reader copy in Summer of 2012. Loved the book but I too had the same problem with the infertility treatments.
The holes in the IF facts didn’t bother me. I think that since we are so close to the IF topic it can be easier for us to see any inconsistency and let that become a hang up.
I just finished her first book, Sharp Objects and I recommend it – though it is much more disturbing. The writing style is similar in that there are big chunks of steps and details that are missing and it can be easy to get bothered by that.
I bet some real life detectives would read Gone Girl and say that it might have some “details” missing as well.
I still give it 5 stars!
Oh, Gone Girl. Yes, the infertility part totally bugged me as well. For such a well-plotted book, that very important development seemed pasted on without research or thought.
My main problem with the book was I detested the characters. Which is probably my own failing. I don’t like getting into the minds of sociopaths and jerks. That said, I loved the way it was written, and the twists were truly shocking to me.
I’m planning on writing more about GG for book club – but yes. The initial gap only bugged me slightly. Clearly Nick had no clue what was going on. But the ending? Hated it. It was completely implausible and frustrated me to no end.
I haven’t read gone girl yet ( may never) but am now intently curious about the twist,. I will have to read the end first ( and I do that with a lot of books, particularly when it starts to feel like there will be such a twist) . What’s the twist?
One of the better books dealing with miscarriage/ectopic for me was a Harlequin Presents book, Once a Ferrara wife by Sarah Morgan. The heroine has had a miscarriage and it colors her entire relationship with her husband. Her emotional reaction was very understandable, particularly when the twist ( it was ectopic) gets disclosed. I found it a bit confronting when I read it, but it was handled well ( very little medical scenes though, all about the emotional side). There are a lot of infertility/pregnancy stories in the romance world, and their mileage varies in accuracy.
Laura Florand’s new novella Snow Kisses also apparently deals with a couple struggling with RPL, and is apparently on the mark, but I can’t bring myself to read it just yet.
Never read Gone Girl, and probably won’t. But yes, it DOES bug me when infertility is depicted unrealistically in fiction. It would TOTALLY annoy me to read that somebody got tested, and then BAM! got tests results, and BAM! started treatments….because, well, I’ve waited eight freaking months since my referral to a fertility clinic and have not had one treatment yet (though plenty of tests…and meetings to discuss results….months apart). Writers need to do research. I’m touchy enough at this point that it turns me against a book/show/movie when they screw it up and don’t get the details or the “feel” right. Yes, it’s fiction…maybe even fantasy. But as one Goodreads reviewer once said memorably of a book: “I like my fantasy to have a bit more reality.” 😀
It doesn’t bother me at all. My husband and I did IVF exclusively and he was always required to provide a frozen sample for back up in case he couldn’t perform the day of. At one point he had 3 samples on ice, two that had been back ups and one that had been used for an extensive sample. They store them for a year w/o charging (probably because they require them) so hubby had to sign paperwork to dispose of them. However, there is no way I could access those sample to get knocked up w/o hubby’s say so.
ps I read GG some time ago and I don’t recall caring about the IF sub-plot. As other ppl have mentioned, so much of the book was lies and twists of lies that I just assumed that there more lies involved.
I was really disturbed by IF in Weiner’s book, though. It totally pissed me off.
I hate when I feel like an author didn’t take/make the time to fully research major parts of their novels. It doesn’t matter if its infertility or 911 dispatchers. Take the time to really KNOW what you are writing about- or change your subject path to something you are familiar with. Its not just books either movies and television shows do the same thing- then they create this convoluted idea of how things really work and the general public believes them.
It kind of ruined the book for me, and I’ve loved her previous books. Just can’t get past that. Do your research!
Having spend a considerable amount of time writing about infertility in a way that is freely and publicly accessible, it does annoy me that someone wouldn’t at least read through enough blog posts on basic infertility treatments to get a believable outline of the process.
Although I can see the temptation to ignore reality if it interferes with your otherwise brilliant plot.
But I think you’re right in that you undermine the story by ignoring reality in that particular way.
Well, in this case, I rolled my eyes a lot during the infertility plot-line because it didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Then, when the twist came at the end, I was supremely annoyed. I liked most of the book, but it got pretty ridiculous overall and this was just one of the ridiculous plot points.
For once, I resisted the impulse to read this post after the spoilers. 😉 I actually bookmarked it and came back to it AFTER I finished the book — and, since I was reading it on an e-reader, it was a lot harder to flip ahead.
So the final twist was a surprise to me, a dangling loose end I had kind of forgotten about. But as soon as I read that she was pregnant, I knew exactly how she did it…!! I did wonder, as Alexicographer mentioned, whether they wouldn’t have needed his consent first?
I did kind of go “huh??” as I was reading the infertility treatment/clinic part of the story… but since it was almost a bit of a footnote to everything else that was going on, I didn’t pay too much attention, until the end brought it all back. It IS ridiculous — but it doesn’t bother me enough to ruin the book for me. As Katedaphne said, I might have minded more about the fine details if the book’s entire focus was on infertility. I would certainly expect the author to know her stuff better then.
I’m betting we could have a book club discussion just on the infertility/pregnancy loss aspects of this book alone…! I’ll look forward to seeing the actual questions (& answers) later this week. 😉
I forgot to mention — I was reminded of the Scott Turow book/Harrison Ford movie “Presumed Innocent” in which Ford’s mistress is murdered — as it turns out, by his vengeful wife, who inserts her own diaphragm — containing her husband’s semen — inside the dead mistress. The kicker is the mistress had a tubal ligation & had no need to use a diaphragm.