There are many who believe that Agatha Christie never actually experienced a fugue. Some believe that it was simply a publicity stunt to promote her new book, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd (“Disappearance”). This theory is not probable considering that her book was already a best-seller, as well as the fact that she was one of the most well-known authors of that time (Mason). Such a publicity stunt was not needed, and far out of character for the woman who preferred to keep her private life, well, private.

     The more popular idea surrounding her disappearance is that she staged it all as a way to extend her marriage to Archibald Christie and strain his relationship with Nancy Neele (de Vito, Della Sala). This claim concludes that Christie suffered no form of memory-loss and had full control of all her actions. This theory can be compared to the actions of the character in Gillian Flynn’s 2012 novel, Gone Girl. Amy Dunn finds her husband having an affair and in response she fakes her death and leaves clues so that the blame would be placed upon her husband. Looking at it in such a way, it is similar to the case of Agatha Christie. It is not probable, however, that this was the case.

     One must be reminded that Agatha Christie was a mystery writer. Because of her success in the genre, she had to be skilled in plotting a mystery, and her actions do not seem to reflect what the famous mystery novelist would write for a character trying to disappear. If Christie were trying to take revenge on her cheating husband by vanishing, it is unlikely that she would have stayed in a hotel where she would be so easily recognized. She would have known that her face was displayed all over newspapers and her story would be read by most of those surrounding her. Considering the amount of recourses being used to find her, she must have known the backlash she would have to face if she were to be discovered staying in a hotel, yet she did nothing to shield herself and even interacted with those at the hotel through games and social events. For a writer trying to strain her husband, she was only setting herself up to face worldwide criticism, something a mystery expert like her would have avoided.  Her execution of such a ‘plan’ was rushed and sloppy, and extremely out of character for the woman.

     Considering her actions along with her background in mysteries, it is more likely that she did, in fact, suffer a fugue state rather than carry out a plot to strain her husband. Biographer Andrew Norman supports this theory, stating that, “her adoption of a new personality, Theresa Neele, and her failure to recognize herself in newspaper photographs were signs that she had fallen into psychogenic amnesia,” (Mason).