The Secret History by Donna Tartt

I just this moment finished listening to The Secret History by Donna Tartt. My first reaction upon finishing it is very simple and very loud: HOW was this Tartt’s DEBUT NOVEL? 

The Goldfinch is one of my favorite books of all time (although it is beginning to fade a bit in my memory; perhaps I need a reread), but the fact that Tartt BEGAN with The Secret History blows my mind. 

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. Tartt’s Wikipedia page includes a couple of quotes from former professors, each of whom said that she was a genius. Plus her third novel won the Pulitzer. So she clearly has incredible writing chops.

And now I want to know: what are some of your favorite debut novels? (Some of my other picks would be: Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng, Such a Fun Age by Kiley Reid, The Push by Ashley Audrain, and Everything Is Illuminated by Jonathan Safran Foer.)

Anyway: this book was a fabulous read.

Rating:

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4.5 out of 5.

Mini Synopsis: Richard Papen transfers from California to Hampden College, a small liberal arts school in Vermont, where he joins a clique of five classics students studying under the eccentric and brilliant Julian Morrow. Richard, from the perspective of an adult many years removed from his time at Hampden, reflects on the murder of one of his classmates, and how it affected the relationships among the members of Julian’s tight-knit group. 

What I Liked About This Book: I find it hard to put words to what I loved about this book, which is, at its essence, its composition. It is, more so than many books, a finely woven tapestry with a murder at its center, the individual threads invisible until you look closely. 

This book is a murder mystery, of sorts – although you know the murder is coming, and you know its victim, and you even know who did the killing. The work of the story, then, is to reveal not only how the murder came about but why – and why it was a reasonable and necessary act, at least in the minds of those at its center. 

As the story unfolded, I was not only pulled into the plot and the complex relationships of the characters, but I was also wowed by how tightly crafted the story was. Tiny mentions early in the novel would resonate later in unexpected ways. 

While I wouldn’t say that this book reveled in language, or that it was particularly beautifully written, I did find myself delighted by some of the imagery. Quick, deft metaphors would stick with me as particularly apt descriptions – “a spider of anxiety,” or shadows so crisp they looked like cutouts on the grass. 

I loved the larger themes that Tartt touches on in this novel as well. Beauty, morality, consequences, wealth and social status, ownership/possession (of facts, of people, of information, of currency), guilt, philosophy vs reality, superficial appearances, excess, individuality and group dynamics. It is rich with thought provoking situations that resonate in today’s social climate. 

What I Didn’t Like About This Book: As with The Goldfinch, my main criticism is likability. Tartt masterfully, I think, brings the characters to life, lays bare their weaknesses and motivations. And yet I didn’t find a single one of them to be likable or even empathetic. It’s not that I found them unlikable. They were simply neutral in my head. So I wish I had been able to drum up some sort of emotional response to the characters, but I couldn’t. 

This book also had a Great Gatsby-an feel to it that, for me, grew very tiresome. So much drinking, so much smoking, so many drugs. Some of those things are necessary because they drive the plot forward, the drinking and drugs and smoking are thematically appropriate, and yet… the characters’ lives just felt overwhelmingly saturated by Dionysian excess which made me very weary.

This book was published in 1992, so there are certain aspects of the language and content that seem outdated. A few homophobic slurs and racist comments, specifically, have stuck with me after the fact. I always wonder, would those things have leapt out at me back in the early 90s the way they do now? Or was that kind of casual hate truly just… “acceptable”? I think the hateful language makes sense in terms of the characters who espouse these vile views, but it’s still unpleasant to come across. 

One last thing I didn’t like (and this is really stupid): the cover. I have seen this book a million times since I read The Goldfinch a decade ago, and every time I have found the cover so off-putting I have never been able to pick it up. Isn’t that silly? It’s not an offensive cover, just… dull, I guess? I don’t know. To each her own!

Should You Read This Book? I really enjoyed this book. It swept me up and felt utterly satisfying, even though there were no surprises. (Even the most shocking bits were hinted at well before they happened, which reaffirmed my feeling that this book is exquisitely well crafted.) If you liked The Goldfinch, you would probably enjoy this. I am struggling to find other works to compare it to – perhaps some of John Boyne’s work has a similar feel to the writing and the unfolding of the story. 

I listened to this one, and Tartt herself did the narration. It took me awhile to become acclimated to her speaking style, but it grew on me.