Abstract. My paper will focus on contemporary US author Gillian Flynn (1971–), and will explore the different layers of the “coolness” narrative in her best-selling novel Gone girl (2012). More specifically, I will discuss how Flynn’s intriguing female protagonist, Amy Elliott Dunne, re-writes and re-imagines the above narrative, and how the reader’s perceptions about both fiction and femininity are constantly re-conditioned and re-negotiated. Using an eclectic methodological stand which relies primarily on postmodern and postfeminist theories, I will draw attention to the antagonism between Amy and her husband, Nick, and argue that it is fueled not only by the former’s obsession with the idea of “perfect marriage,” as it has been commonly suggested, but by her strong need to always have the last word. Consequently, I will approach Gone girl not just as a captivating psychological thriller which examines the ups and downs of married life, but as a sophisticated treatise on the complex requirements of creative writing that re-problematizes the field’s most popular conventions. Through the alternating narrations of Amy and Nick and, especially, through their consistent attempts to outsmart each other and produce the most convincing story of their life together, I will show how Flynn re-conceptualizes the agenda of both feminism and creative writing, proposing fresh interpretative perspectives. Ultimately, I will argue that Gone girl offers a most impressive panorama of the various cultural revisions that have taken place within contemporary US society and, as such, deserves detailed scholarly attention

Key words: Flynn; contemporary US fiction; creative writing; feminism; gender; postmodernism

Michailidou A (2025) Postmodernism, postfeminism and the “coolness” narrative in Gillian Flynn’s Gone girl. Creativity 8(2): 535–551. doi:10.22381/C8220254