Donna Tartt Books

After I picked up Suite Française by Irene Nemirovsky, I happened to look at the cover-design credit and recognized the name Chip Kidd. After a moment's reflection as to the source of my familiarity with the designer, I walked over to my bookshelf and picked up a volume from my collection of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha. Sure enough, Kidd had designed the covers for the entire series (incidentally, I found the design one part frustrating and one part inspiring, as the spines line up nicely and thematically but the half-jacket is kind of obnoxious to deal with).

After that, I went through my shelves and picked out any of the books that I thought had interesting covers. At least half of those were designed by Kidd as well. Kafka on the Shore. Pagan Babies. The Enigma of Japanese Power. Created in Darkness by Troubled Americans. Et cetera.

I was intrigued, Googled our dear designer, and found that he was more popular than I had properly imagined. This piqued still further my curiosity. And so now I have another book with a cover designed by Kidd: Chip Kidd: Book One: Work: 1986-2006, a 400-page volume exhibiting a sample of his book-jacket designwork from the last twenty years.

The book itself is a treasure. A visual smorgasbord of styles and themes. A veritable cornucopia of novel treatments. While there is an occasional overlap of feel or technique (or some other abstract quantification equally obscured and subjective), the breadth of design direction is truly impressive.

Kidd is clearly a creative devil.

And this collection of his work is impressively presented. Book One is a treat for both the eyes and the mind. While a mere presentation of the jacket designs themselves would be a worthwhile scheme for a design collection such as this, the work is elevated by helpful descriptions both of product and process by the creator himself as well as reactions penned by authors/victims of his creative process. Kidd's text shows both a joy in his work and a look into what goes into the crafting of a book jacket that enlarges upon the work it containsand does so with humour and more apparent humility than I would have expected.

I found the book so interesting that I blew through the entire thing in two days. Doubtlessly, I'll return to it time and again over the coming months and years. In any case, I highly recommend it to those interested in thoughtful design, a pairing of words too rare in our day.

NOTE: a big bone of contention is not the visual design of the volume's cover but its physical properties. While its dimensions are perfectly suitable for an art collection/coffee table read, the unique composition of its cover can be difficult to negotiate. The hardback cover only extends (front and back) to the point of the spine of the book photographed on the cover. Inside the hardback cover is a paperback cover that extends to house the rest of the book. It is awkward, certainly, and took a bit of getting used to, but once I became accustomed to the book, holding it comfortably ceased to be a difficulty. Heh, a book with a physical learning curvethat was a new one for me.

This is a great, great book. If you're a fan of Kidd's work, by all means buy this book. If you are at all interested in truly inspirational graphic design, this book is a must-have.

PROS: having so many of Kidd's designs in one place is worth the price of admission, inclusion of the development and back story of each cover is interesting and elucidating, stories of his adventures in the trade are well-written and fun to learn about.

CONS: the cover is awkward, the shape of the book makes it hard to hold while reading - you really have to put it on something flat - it's sometimes difficult to decipher exactly which pictures the captions are referencing.

There is a definite form-over-function issue with the book, but the content is what counts - and that gets 5 stars from me without a quibble.

I HAD to buy this book after having read about it in another forum. Kidd's artworks are superb!

This book is bound with a split hardback/softback cover, so if you appreciate design -- which I assume you do since you're considering a compilation of book designs -- the book is worth buying for this odd cover arrangement alone.

This an excellent ,colorful book with very useful and informative comments,they are also humorous.Kidd mentions that he shows failed designs when he lectures to show that even a successful designer has failures.Unfortunately,in my opinion,the jacket for this volume falls in this category,its clever but not practical.because the cover is split in two parts its an irritation to hold and eventually the cover will be bent when laying down or storing in shelf.Still a must have in this genre.Now how about a Susan Mitchell collection?
ps.i followed my advice and bought the hardcover .Amazing its even more unwieldy,the cover is half hard and half soft,yikes!I ended up buying the soft cover to keep and treat it very carefully ,was that the point of this nutty design?I guess this cover will enter the hall of fame and certainly will be a collectors item if its never opened.Argghh!!!

The demise of The Oxford American magazine is a tragedy! Thank goodness a person can still sample its pages in this wonderful compilation of fiction, essays and reviews. Tony Earley's essay, Letter from Sister: What We Learned at the P.O., which concerns Eudora Welty's great short story, is probably the best thing in the book. It doesn't stop there however; there is a sample of John T. Edge's great writing on southern food, Hal Crowther's review of Erskine Caldwell, Donna Tartt's thoughts on Willie Morris and so much more. This book, like the old Oxford American itself, is pure bliss.

UPDATE: Spring 2005. "The Oxford American" is back!! I suggest that everyone with an interest in the American South spend some quality time with an issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The only element lacking in this collection are re-issues of the prized "Southern Music" CDs which appeared with the annual "Music Issue" of the Oxford American. Otherwise, for those who have not archived each issue of the magazine, this is an excellent selection.

Sadly, the Oxford American's precarious financial situation perpetually places it in the southern `lost cause' cliché. Would that some subscribers of other moribund New York-based `literary' magazines, which perpetually lurch around the elite graveyard of memory for its existence, abandon the shell and support the living, and the future. Intelligent readers will both want to own this volume, and subscribe to the Oxford American.

The idea of "the best of the Oxford American" brings out a lot of expectations. This magazine has been the home for a lot of special writing. This book provides some of those moments. I especially enjoyed the narrative of the small town photographer burdened by the unwelcome insights of his coworkers and the blank misunderstandings of his Disney World roadtripping friends. I think that the criticism by Tony Earley would have made just as good an introduction to this book as did Rick Bragg's more metaphorical observation that this writing is "heavy on the salt."
I would recommend this book for anyone that wants to read about the South as it actually is -- unique, history-addled, and genuinely "salty".

This collection of works--fiction, nonfiction, poetry, reportage--by the biggest names writing in or about the South is a real treasure. For those already familiar with "the New Yorker of the South" it will remind those what have made the magazine so special for so many years, and for those who have not discovered the magazine, BOA will be a great introduction to the best in Southern belles lettres. The book, like the magazine itself, is a little trad and not good on commenting on the lives of blacks, gays/lesbians, and immigrants to the South, but there is much for everyone to enjoy here.

I read a lot of books (164 in 2007), and it's rare that I actually have an emotional response. Not to the story -- that has to happen or reading would be no fun at all. I mean feeling genuine affection for the characters, so that I'm actually sorry the story is over.

True Grit is the first book in a long time to elicit that response from me, and I'm not exactly sure why it did. It was certainly not the plot, which is simplicity itself: fourteen-year-old Mattie Ross hires an unconventional U.S. marshal, Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn, to hunt down Tom Chaney, the man who killed her father. That's all, but it takes the whole book for that storyline to complete itself, and what a glorious ride it is.

What makes the read memorable is how Portis draws his two lead characters. The title attribute is at first meant to apply to Cogburn, of course, but we soon discover that Mattie herself has just as much "grit" (the word "sand" is also used in this way) when she asks the local sheriff for his opinion on who the best marshal is:

He said, "...I reckon William Waters is the best tracker. The meanest one is Rooster Cogburn. He is a pitiless man, double-tough, and fear don't enter into his thinking.... Now L.T. Quinn, he brings his prisoners in alive.... He will not plant evidence or abuse a prisoner. He is straight as a string. Yes, I will say that Quinn is about the best they have."

I said, "Where can I find this Rooster?"

Mattie is full of surprises, but we soon find that Rooster is, too. Introduced as a hard-drinking, unreliable man who is the epitome of the loner, Rooster begins to grudgingly admire the "sand" (a.k.a. "grit") of this "child" and a kind of respect (and later, affection) grows between them. It is this unexpected turn of character (along with other surprising touches that kept me on my toes) that display Portis's skill to such great effect.

Donna Tartt (an author in her own right) gives a fine reading on the audiobook of True Grit. Her Mississippi accent substitutes for the Arkansas twang of the characters well enough for most listeners, and her vocal characterizations are utterly perfect. Not only are they distinct and unmistakable, but they also express a deep knowledge of these people as individuals, allowing the listener to completely get lost in the story.

Tartt's afterword adds little except to express her entire family's love for the book (it is, I understand, an introduction to the print edition, and is probably better served in that capacity), but acts as a good celebration of a book that is likely to become one of my favorites, as well.

Like I stated at the beginning, very few books speak to my emotions the way that True Grit did, and I look forward to reexperiencing its wonders in the near future because this is one book that will require multiple readings to really understand its subtleties. This is not just a terrific Western; it's a terrific novel, and one that deserves a wider audience.

I absolutely adored Tartt's other novel, The Little Friend, and I had high hopes for this one too. I was not disappointed. The novel tells the story of five students at an elite New England liberal arts college. All of the students are tremendously, unusually devoted to their studies, and this devotion leads them to tragedy as they murder first, an outsider, and then one of their own. The fact of the murders is not the suspenseful part of the plot. Indeed, the murder of one of the group's own is revealed on the first page. Rather, the interest, intruige, and suspense comes in how the students cope with the knowledge of what they've done. Their suspicion, fear, and even some remorse wreak havoc and lead the group to an even more tragic climax. The main characters in this book are Classics students, and indeed, the book itself reads much like a Greek tragedy, with precipitous decline, and knowledge thereof.

Donna Tartt is a phenomenal storyteller. She creates plots that are deep, rich, and complex. Much like The Little Friend, The Secret History is a highly psychological book. I was absolutely gripped by this book from beginning to end.

A friend recommended this book. I do not know why. My opinion: I found it to be a slow, tedious read, mainly because it contains many detailed descriptions about people, settings and situations irrelevant to the story - what I consider "filler" and a waste of the reader's time. I think the book could have been much shorter. Furthermore, the characters and plot were never believable. A college student helps new friends hide a murder with which he had no involvement, and then helps those friends commit another murder to help ensure the first murder - again, one in which he had no involvement - is not revealed. The author uses her characters to display her knowledge of language and literature. I guess she had to use it for something.

No, I've never written a book and I probably never will. And, yes, it's easy to criticize someone else's work. Still, I did not enjoy reading this story.

Tartt's suspenseful and riveting first novel is one of my favorite books. I've re-read it three times and stayed up much of the night reading it the first time around. I could not put it down, which is the highest compliment I can give to a book. Told from the perspective of Richard, a newcomer to a small college in New England who becomes part of a clique of six students at a small college in New England who are handpicked by their professor to study the classics. The story involves an accidental death, the cover-up and the murder of one of the members of the clique (this is not a spoiler - Tartt reveals this much in the first part of the book). It's a compelling read with well developed characters. I anxiously await Tartt's next book (not counting The Little Friend).

A wonderful 300-page novel... that unfortunately clocks in at 558 pages. Tartt's prose grows so purple at times that I often feared her book had cut off my circulation. While her story about pampered Vermont undergraduates creates an engaging character study backdropped by murder, I found myself wishing someone had taken a red pen to the chunky prose. For example, the characters can scarcely utter a word of dialogue without the accompanying tag line being weighed down by too many ponderous adverbs. Likewise, just how many times does the main character, Richard, have to notice the shimmer of light on his love interest's hair? We get the idea.

Clearly Tartt is gifted, but too often she is unrestrained in the worst way. As for pacing, I found myself wanting quicker segues between the most interesting scenes. Unfortunately, meandering blow-by-blow accounts were provided when compression would have sufficed. Most vexing was the fact that the character I found most intriguing--the students' Greek professor--remained a barely sketched enigma all the way to the tale's end. And while Tartt's knowledge of ancient Greek is sufficient enough to be convincing, she too often fails to use simple English punctuation correctly (Tartt suffers from comma overkill; she often sets off dependent clauses with semi-colons, creating awkward fragments). Perhaps this wouldn't be such a flaw in novels carried along by less formal rhetoric, except Tartt's writing about supposedly gifted students who should know better. These examples may seem like quibbles, but they are only the least of the many flaws one might find if they look too closely at this book.

The Secret History is a pop potboiler masquerading as highbrow art. Enjoy it for what it is and hope that Tartt's third novel will be the more tightly written masterpiece I sense she is capable of.

I come away from this book at a loss as to what to say about it: It deserves both high praise and heavy criticism. It is a rapturous, beautiful, intricate and balanced work of art; it is also oddly archaic, strangely disconnected from reality, and oftentimes more dissolute than well-worked.

In praise, its insight into the kind of effete degeneracy that seems to well up when one isolates maturing intellectuals with one another is chillingly apt: It is apt, however, more in the sense of metaphor than in any naturalistic sense. The romance, luxuriousness, and cruel beauty of the cultivated degeneracy Tartt takes as her theme is evoked with brilliance and not inconsiderable talent.

In way of criticism, however, the novel is long and hangs loosely on its frame; its narrator, a character standing halfway between the position of a blank-slate observer and a character in his own right, vacillates between transparency and muddiness, his gestures toward the development of a personality alternatingly muddy and tragic, and this narratorial shapelessness contributes to the baggy-monsterness of the text as a whole.

Though it is easy to identify the themes of the work in broad strokes, I come away from an attentive reading of the text without being able to put my finger on its moral center, which is, I think, a flaw in Tartt's writing, not an element of her design; _The Secret History_ works very hard to achieve a sense of this moral center, and it is a very grave and wise one, at that; but it fails to alight on it definitively. The novel does not easily settle into the sum of its parts.

A very unsettling element of this book is the weird timelessness of its setting: I had to guess continuously when it might have been set, my first guess being the sixties, then gradually moving up through the decades as bits of background information trickled through the text. As nearly as I can tell, it takes place in the eighties--a time during which students use typewriters and rely on pay phones, but contextually after the sixties and seventies. Being the eighties, however, virtually every character speaks in his own bizarrely archaic voice: Bunny sounds like a hybrid of Teddy Roosevelt and Gatsby; Francis like a Victorian effeminate; and the unflattering peripheral characters like technicolor Californians or oddly outdated cokeheads. I can't determine whether this is an element of its structure or a flaw.

Finally, as a Classicist myself I came away with the uncertain suspicion that Tartt does not actually herself possess any classical languages. Virtually every instance of Greek in the text is orthographically wrong in some way; for instance I saw a lambda mysteriously mistyped as a gamma, that is, flipped upside down in the transcription process (it caused the word to read "pogyeides" not "polyeides"); and when the diacritical marks aren't wrong, they're lacking. These quibbles aside, it may well be that we ought to blame the typesetter, not the author, because Tartt's use of classical material in the text is unwaveringly appropriate and often quite erudite.

Despite its flaws, the book is intoxicating: I took a long shower the day I finished it, when I was about halfway through; I didn't realize until halfway through the thirty-minute soak that I was lingering because I actually felt _infected_ by the guilt of Tartt's characters, that my immersion in this book had made me uncleanly complicit to their crimes, their dread. This little work of sympathetic magic on her part is a testament to the intellectual and moral impact of her text, and, I think, excuses in itself the flaws one may point out in it; it is, moreover, beautifully written and unflaggingly rich. This book may never be a classic, but it is without a doubt fiction of literary merit.

Winesburg, Ohio is a collection of 20+ short stories about life in the small town of Winesburt, Ohio (a fictional town). The great thing about these stories is that they overlap and many of the characters make more than one appearance. The book covers life at the turn of the century and deals with everything from: envy, lonliness, wanting a sense of adventure, love, being lost, family and just gettin' by.

It's not a fast paced book by any means, it's a thoughtful composition of every day life, which is exactly why it is so enjoyable!

Winesburg, Ohio was written by Sherwood Anderson about a small town in Ohio. Not the town now known as Winesburg, Ohio, but another smalltown called Clyde, Ohio.
I read this book in 9th grade & I could recognize some of the places in the book. They are still there in my hometown.

Often credited as an inspiration by the renowned literati of the 20th century, Sherwood Anderson exhibited his subtle fineness and simple genius when he penned `Winesburg, Ohio' in 1919. Told as a collection of short stories, the `grotesque' inhabitants of the secluded town of Winesburg begin to relate to a young reporter, George Willard, and open up from the confinements of their society, revealing their inner hopes that will never be fulfilled, and their true sentiments that will remain repressed.

In each story, the reader is invited to observe the attempts by different townsfolk--of all social glass--attempting to seek recognition, respectability and happiness within the community, while all the time internally seeking to justify their own existence in a society that does not seem to befit the effort. Cynicism abounds, as the characters either accept their failed hopes, or are seen to shrilly grasp onto the last motivation for any seemingly purposeful existence. While each character has the potential to be of some significance, all fail in achieving this, remaining inconsequential to the wider world. The opening up to George can be seen as a desperate to attempt to inject solid meaning onto their lives; unintentionally offering George (and the reader) a glimpse into the likely the future for the majority.

A book which explores the emotions behind failed ambition, despair and social cohesion, `Winesburg, Ohio' is a classic cogitation on the American Dream and the place of the individual in the greater world.

Let's just start with the fact that Faulkner, Hemingway, and Wolfe worshiped at this man's feet and that this book is the reason why. There are many reviewers here that just can't figure out what the author is trying to get across. How is that possible? He states it flat out in just about every story, but in the Book of the Grotesque, he's abundantly clear. We each seize upon an obsession that deforms us to the point that we are incommunicable to each other. Anderson then goes on to observe case studies of that dynamic in action.

This book is completely underrated for its impact. If you wonder why you begin to enjoy short stories right around 1920, this is the reason. Anderson created the purely psychological revelatory ending. It took Raymond Carver to knock that out of vogue, but it was vulnerable primarily because it had been done so many times. I will stand fully behind the arguement that the only short story worth your time before this is Joyce's The Dead, and that's because it has an Andersonesque ending. If anyone can provide another example, I'm dying to know.

Anderson created the modern short story with this book. He lost credibility later because he wasn't able to follow this stunning first act. However, he inspired and mentored America's next generation of authors, and his relegation to the literary dung heap is absurd. Granted that he took almost his entire mood and subject matter from Spoon River Anthology, but he certainly delivered a masterpiece in short order.

All of Anderson's short stories are worthwhile, and I wish that you could easily find his later collections in print. Triumph of the Egg, Horses and Men, and Death in the Woods are each spectacular collections, but don't have the cohesion of Winesburg. Individually, however, there are stronger stories in the other collections, so seek them out if you like Winesburg. Anderson finds the mythic in the commonplace and presents it in the language of the common man of the time. It's inspiring, and nobel prize winning careers have been made in the attempt to pull off the same effect. Only Faulkner can claim to have succeeded.

This is one of those books which juxtaposes stereotypes with realities. This is an amazingly well written book delivered in amazingly clever style.

The book is about the good life in the small town of Winesburg, where the good life is not so good for all of the folks. The warm and fuzzy people in Winesburg can be as cold and abrasive as the city folk. Young lovers in Winesburg can grow to become old people who hate one another. A momentary mistake in judgment can become an everlasting scar on one's integrity among peers in Winesburg. Best intentions by grandparents to grandchildren can be received in a worst manner. Winesburg is the All American City where bad things can happen to good people.

Like his peer, Theodore Dreiser ("Sister Carrie" and "An American Tragedy"), Anderson depicts American ideals in less than appealing colors. True stories, or fictional accounts, include failures as well as successes. Most people are donned as ordinary, and the extraordinary worthy of literature are often the happiest 5% and the saddest 5%. Anderson concentrates on the latter.

But, do not believe this is droll or mundane reading about others' hard luck. This book is indicative of its time. Not belabored by overly aggressive use of the English language, it flows easily in its narrative. Like shipyard yarns, you must hear or read more. The stories snare you. And, you seem to want to read the next when you finish what you thought to be your last.

Before I started, I read that this was a group of short stories which all take place in Winesburg. I think one could also describe the book as a novel about George Willard which is delivered in a short-story format. It discusses young journalist Willard's observations of his town and how he, like Jimmy Stewart's George Bailey of "It's a Wonderful Life", is busting to get out of his small town.

And, this book - written a century ago - amazingly reads well today. Anderson really hit a chord with this reader with this book.

an intelligent thriller, but also a serious literary work. i recommend it to anyone who enjoys good writing

This "readers guide" for Donna Tarrtt's "The Secret History" is thin on insight and value. While it is one step above "Cliffs Notes" in being both a summary and a "critical" work, it smacks of a first approximation of a better treatment that was then cut and slapped together on a thin budget and tight deadline. Literary criticism is a notoriously underpaid field (heck, folks posting here at AMAZON are giving it away for free), but still, readers are underserved by Hargreaves. Sad, for many of her observations and detail work teased out here have merit for discussion, and just as the reader is getting interested Hargreaves cuts off and moves on.

Hargreaves first chapter "The Novelist" is perhaps most useful for the curious Tartt stalker (yikes!), for it is an adequate thumbnail biography and summary of author details appearing in print elsewhere but in previously uncollected form. This chapter has no original content. Chapter two is the largest section and covers "The Novel" with a topical breakdown of characters, plot summary, setting, and main themes. Hargreaves correctly identifies many of Tartt's structures and literary techniques and devices, but in her "Conclusions" section on page 62 misses the point of the work entirely when she bald facedly states "There are no moral absolutes in the world that Tartt creates in her novel..." demonstrating that Hargreaves has completely missed a recurring leitmotif in the novel: Catholicism. Two chapters follow to pad out the work: "The Novel's Reception" and "The Novel's Performance" the last of which smacks of sour grapes and left me curious why they were not simply combined into a single chapter. The "Further Reading" section is perhaps the best, for it is nearly an annotated bibliography, and includes very nice summaries of obscure Tartt short pieces. The useless "Discussion Questions" left me fearful of the level of teaching of literature that goes on in Hargreaves's world, for not a single selected question raises the issue of religion in the work. Considering the central event of the novel, this is preposterous and misleading. Anyone who reads and thinks deserves better.

Strangely enough I didn't like the Secret History when it was first released, and I only picked up this book because of all the advance press surrounding Ms Tartt's new novel. And now I'm a fan. Which is not, as far as I know, the job of literary criticism - but then this book is not quite lit crit, it's an odd combination of scholarship and enthusiasm that works surprisingly well. It's persuaded me that the Secret History is a much cleverer book than I gave it credit for, and it's made me marvel at Ms Tartt's erudition.

(On the strength of this volume, I picked up the same publisher's guide to American Psycho, and that one is even better.)

Right, I'm off to read the Little Friend.

This is an extremely slight little handbook--too limited to be of much use to the experienced reader, yet too expensive to justify its inclusion as a complement to Tartt's modern cult classic. Students who are at all motivated can easily get as much information through a few quick internet searches. I'm giving my copy to a student TA as a handy accessory for help in grading papers.

Wasn't sure what to expect from this - a reader's guide makes it sound like it could be some patronising crap. But it's actually very smart, and even though I thought I knew it all about TSH, it turns out I didn't. Having said that, the author, Ms Hargreaves, missed out a few things, but maybe she didn't have room? Anyhow, she is very good on all the literary references in TSH, especially the Classical stuff. She regurgitates the most interesting parts of DT's printed interviews (shame she couldn't get a new one for this book, but not surprising I guess!), and I came away even more convinced of what a weird, wonderful one-off novel TSH is. Which makes me terrified that DT's new one will suck, but we'll have to see...

Definitely recommended, unless you really do know everything about the book already!

I loved Donna Tartt's first novel, The Secret History, immmensely and waiting for her second novel for years. I really wish I could say that this book exceeded the achievement of that book, but I can't. Nonetheless, I still think this far exceeds most of what is out there.

Tartt is a master of rendering the settings of her stories. This one really embraces childhood in the deep south. The characters, if not quite real, are certainly undertandable and detailed. Her theme here is dark. This novel is about bad deeds and punishment and the mood in the aftermath of death. The research is very good here and it feels very true. It is effective and well written, but a little heavier on symbolism than I prefer.

Nonetheless, as I said earlier, I very much liked this book and highly recommend it.

Weird happenings within an even weirder family combine with the "fusty, drunken perfume of Magnolia" to fill this southern Gothic novel with bizarre behavior and pervasive threats of death and revenge. Forces of evil are at work, according to Charlotte Cleve, a mother of three, who believes the mysterious hanging death of her nine-year-old son Robin resulted because she changed her traditional Mother's Day celebration from noon to six o'clock on the day he died.

Twelve years after Robin's death, his fiercely independent sister Harriet, now twelve herself, investigates the circumstances of Robin's death, bent on identifying and punishing his murderer. Bearing little resemblance to Scout, the endearing heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird, single-minded Harriet recognizes no limits and is willing to do anything, including using a gun, to accomplish her goals. Confronting ex-cons who run a crystal meth lab, ditsy great-aunts who know what's "right," redneck children who lurk in the bushes, two snake-handling preachers, a mother who turns her house into a maze filled with piles of rotting, old newspapers, and a sister who sleeps seventeen hours a day ("I only get bored when I'm awake," she says), Harriet takes more comfort from her plans for revenge than from traditional southern values.

Tartt's themes of death and punishment achieve some sense of universality through her use of numerous symbols and parallels, often with animals, but these are frequently sentimental. The euthanasia of a beloved pet cat; Harriet's accidental killing of a blackbird stuck in tar, snakes handled by hillbilly preachers; and the vicious dogs of the Ratliff family haunt the narrative. The old family home is called Tribulation; Harriet's heroes are Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, and Captain Scott, the explorer; and she spends much of the novel looking for a pair of red gloves given to her by her black housekeeper, whom she loves but treats with casual cruelty.

The plot strains credulity, even for southern Gothic, and Harriet, as a twelve-year-old protagonist, is too wild and out-of-control to inspire much empathy as a character. The narrative focus of the novel gets lost, and many episodes, only peripherally related to the original search for justice, seem to become narrative ends in themselves. Filled with dense imagery and melodrama, this novel will appeal to those looking for fast escape reading. Mary Whipple

After reading the delightful "The Little Friend," I couldn't wait to start this one. The book is a mish mash of drunken party scenes and hangovers. The characters are stiff and speak in ways peculiar for college students---how many times have you heard someone say, "goodness?" The descriptive scenes are full on dishes crashing in the cafeteria, which tires after a while. There's a lot of talking and very little action, with people reacting strangely to situations. When have you ever heard of someone being "stunned" when hearing that a friend was seen standing in front of a bank? Save your money!!!!

I would not be as critical as the other reviewer. I think this is an excellent book, and I tend to be biased against best-sellers. Hidden in its over-the-top humor is a scathing critique of academia, particularly, academia as it plays out within the confines of a small liberal arts college.

The book is not really realistic; the characters are greatly exaggerated, extreme charicatures of a sort. The author creates a transparent sort of dystopia that could only offend people because it has a little too much truth in it.

Once I started reading this book, I could not put it down. This book is engaging, and although it is not one of the deepest books I've read, it does raise a few interesting questions to think about. There is something unique about the author's style, and her choice of setting and subjects, that I think makes this book worth reading. Plus, it's fun!

Donna Tartt's intellectual thriller "The Secret History" was a rarity among the bestsellers of a decade ago: It was written with plenty of literate references, brimming over with the remnants of Greece. It's a flawed dark gem; there's a work of genius buried somewhere in the clumsiness.

Richard Papen somehow manages to get transferred from a culturally dead backwater in California, to the elite liberal arts college of Hampden in Vermont. Once there, he manages to get accepted into the tiny class of elite students who are studying Greek -- the charming gay Francis, obnoxious sponger Bunny, frightening super-intellect Henry and the beautiful, too-close twins Charles and Camilla.

At first, he tries to hide his impoverished origins and fit in with the beautiful, wealthy students who happily bounce off to Italy for vacation. But he soon learns that there is a dark edge to their love of ancient Greece -- the bacchanal, a barbaric ritual that ended in a man's death. And to keep the secret of that death, Richard will help his new friends kill again -- only this time, it's one of them who will die.

"The Secret History" is definitely a first novel. Donna Tartt writes with a sure hand and confidence, name-dropping just about every Greek and Roman scholar you can think of (also Milton and Donne for good measure). She has a way of writing that sweeps along in a tangle of beautiful words, glossing over the flaws those words have created, without losing the aura of Greek tragedy. It's less about the death of Bunny than it is about what his death does to the others. In short, this book is gorgeous. But it's far from perfect.

Her descriptions are almost peerless, very beautiful and haunted (mostly in keeping with the idea that "beauty is terror"). There are plenty of natural descriptions, from the snow in Richard's apartment to the stream Camilla plays in. Tartt certainly has the "you are there" factor in her ornate, detailed writing. The story is also impeccably paced, starting off slow and building up to the inevitable event.

Unfortunately, Tartt's details leave something to be desired. Her descriptions of the group are almost like a parody of elite college students. Why is Bunny talking about "old top," "old man," "chum" and so forth? Why does Californian Richard suddenly turn into a 19th-century preppie? Why is Francis wearing a pince-nez in the 1980s? And she goes way over the top in making Bunny "dislikable" -- he's a moocher, obnoxious, has a grating voice and is prejudiced against Catholics, Italians, gays, et cetera. It's as if his death has to be justified in Tartt's eyes by making him a huge pain in the butt.

Another flaw crops up in characterization. The little circle of students is shown as being coolly intelligent, cultured, and charming despite their fatal flaws. All other students -- all the "ordinary" people -- are coke-snorting, gauche, loud and stupid. Couldn't be some elitism there, could there? Richard is, unfortunately, a terrible lead character; he's not too bright, clueless, dull and self-pitying. His adoration of the rich, pretty and hedonistic never wears off. With the exception of the unfortunate Bunny, the others are intriguing rather than well-rounded, with their wildly varying personalities and hidden secrets.

Despite the elite literary edge, the core of "Secret History" is unsound. It's beautiful and has the touch of a classic, but sags under the author's first-timer clumsiness.

Weird happenings within an even weirder family combine with the "fusty, drunken perfume of Magnolia" to fill this southern Gothic novel with bizarre behavior and pervasive threats of death and revenge. Forces of evil are at work, according to Charlotte Cleve, a mother of three, who believes the mysterious hanging death of her nine-year-old son Robin resulted because she changed her traditional Mother's Day celebration from noon to six o'clock on the day he died.

Twelve years after Robin's death, his fiercely independent sister Harriet, now twelve herself, investigates the circumstances of Robin's death, bent on identifying and punishing his murderer. Bearing little resemblance to Scout, the endearing heroine of To Kill a Mockingbird, single-minded Harriet recognizes no limits and is willing to do anything, including using a gun, to accomplish her goals. Confronting ex-cons who run a crystal meth lab, ditsy great-aunts who know what's "right," redneck children who lurk in the bushes, two snake-handling preachers, a mother who turns her house into a maze filled with piles of rotting, old newspapers, and a sister who sleeps seventeen hours a day ("I only get bored when I'm awake," she says), Harriet takes more comfort from her plans for revenge than from traditional southern values.

Tartt's themes of death and punishment achieve some sense of universality through her use of numerous symbols and parallels, often with animals, but these are frequently sentimental. The euthanasia of a beloved pet cat; Harriet's accidental killing of a blackbird stuck in tar, snakes handled by hillbilly preachers; and the vicious dogs of the Ratliff family haunt the narrative. The old family home is called Tribulation; Harriet's heroes are Sherlock Holmes, Harry Houdini, and Captain Scott, the explorer; and she spends much of the novel looking for a pair of red gloves given to her by her black housekeeper, whom she loves but treats with casual cruelty.

The plot strains credulity, even for southern Gothic, and Harriet, as a twelve-year-old protagonist, is too wild and out-of-control to inspire much empathy as a character. The narrative focus of the novel gets lost, and many episodes, only peripherally related to the original search for justice, seem to become narrative ends in themselves. Filled with dense imagery and melodrama, this novel will appeal to those looking for fast escape reading. Mary Whipple

"The Secret History" was one of the best novels I have ever read.

And I was not disappointed when I started reading "The Little Friend". The disappointment came crashing down upon me when I finsihed reading it.

Reminded me a lot of another favorite, "To Kill a Mockingbird". To my delight Tartt was one of those rare authors who writes a stunning debut novel and, unlike Harper lee, follows it up with an even better second novel...or so I though until I got to the end.

Call me old-fashioned and picky but I hate it when a story simply comes to a screeching halt without a satisfying wrapping up of all the various threads of the story, as if the author got tired or ran out of paper or ink or something.

I find it perplexing that many reader's of "The Little Friend" seem to have missed the point - which is that Life (yes, in capitals) does not answer all questions, no matter how convincingly we delude ourselves into thinking we have all the pieces of the puzzle. Little Harriett, the main character in this novel, frightened the bejeebers out of me! Far from being a cliche (or a reincarnation from other novels), she is an original, and quite a disturbing one at that. She seems innocent, but the blind tenacity that propels her to seek out her brother's murderer causes death, despair, mayhem and chaos. When everything has gone much too far to be undone, she discovers (as does the reader with a shiver of horror) that she was wrong, the person she has persued throughout the novel turns out not to be her brother's killer. It really matters very little, after that jolt, who the actual killer was; it has become too late to undo, to unravel, to go back and mend what her destructive forces have unleashed. She must live her whole life, now, with two burdens instead of one: she will never know by whose hand her brother died and she will always know that she, herself, caused wrongful death. The Little Friend is not a mystery yarn that begs a neat and tidy solution. It is, rather, a gripping examination of intractable stubbornness gone haywire and the irreversible destruction it causes.

The scene at the water tower, by the way, crackles with tension and suspense, leaving one almost breathless.

I've had this book on my bookshelf for over five years just waiting for the perfect moment to sink my teeth into it-- Tartt didn't disappoint. I grew up during the time this novel takes place and I was transported back into time. Tartt's descriptions are wonderful. The Secret History is definitely in my "top 10" favorite reads. When is your third book coming out, Donna? We are anxiously awaiting!

I'm amazed by how many people didn't like this book. This is one of my favorite novels, I've read it about three times. This book has so much emotion and pathos. I love how mysterious it is. I also love the class distinction, I wouldn't call Tart a racist, it's an honest depiction of the south in the time period the book is set in. The Cleves and the Ratliffs are written both incredibly. From descriptions of Tribulation with gilded mantle pieces and stuffed black bears to the contrast of the Ratliffs' dump of a houshold with connecting mobile homes, and thin curtains with a meth lab in back. For those who said this book is too descriptive are insane, what's the point in reading if the author doesn't put you in the moment and create a character that you can actually imamgine. These aren't wasted pages of description of every character and their homes. What kind of attention span do you have if you say this book is to long-winded, it's not like a Bret Easton Ellis novel, it's not like American Psycho where entire chapters are dedicated to a musicians career, like I really cared about where Heuy Lewis' "Sports" landed on the charts, or What how successful Phil Collins was after he left Genesis. The similarities of To Kill a Mockingbird are prevelant but this novel takes it to the dark gloomy side, as dark as the filthy water Harriet drowns Danny Ratliff in. The relationship between her and Ida Rhew is so bittersweet, she was the only parental figure in her life not even her grandmother had the firm kindness she did, and it's so touching and sad when Ida leaves and Harriet is the one to blame, and when she realizes her selfishness, she has no way to contact Ida. My only criticism would be the ending, it does kind of leave you hanging, and when I first read it I was a little annoyed by it. But as I read again I liked how it was left open where you can imagine your own conclusion.

I suffered through 624 pages of this book. Honestly, it was torcherous. I was just hoping for a great ending the entire time and didn't get it. If you're into very,very detailed books with not much happening you will love it.