Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 1992
524 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Truly deserving of the accolade a modern classic, Donna Tartt's novel is a remarkable achievement—both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.
"Tartt's much bruited first novel is a huge rambling story that is sometimes ponderous, sometimes highly entertaining. Part psychological thriller, part chronicle of debauched, wasted youth, it suffers from a basically improbable plot, a fault Tartt often redeems through the bravado of her execution. ... In the final analysis, however, readers may enjoy the pull of a mysterious, richly detailed story told by a talented writer." - Publishers Weekly
"This well-written first novel attempts to be several things: a psychological suspense thriller, a satire of collegiate mores and popular culture, and a philosophical bildungsroman.... Ultimately, it works best as a psychological thriller." - Library Journal
"The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too- long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods.... First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids- -while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's--and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal--and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie." - Kirkus
"Tartt's voice is unlike that of any of her contemporaries. Her beautiful language, intricate plotting, fascinating characters, and intellectual energy make her debut by far the most interesting work yet from her generation." - The Boston Globe
"A long tale of friendship, arrogance, and murder knit together with the finesse that many writers will never have ...Her writing bewitches us ... The Secret History is a wonderfully beguiling book, a journey backward to the fierce and heady friendships of our school days, when all of us believed in our power to conjure up divinity and to be forgiven any sin." -The Philadelphia Inquirer
"The great pleasure of the novel is the wonderful complexity and the remarkable skill with which this first novelist spins the tale. And a gruesome tale it is. ... A great, dense, disturbing story, wonderfully told." - Cosmopolitan
This information about The Secret History was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Beowulf Sheehan
Donna Tartt was born in 1963 in Greenwood, Mississippi. She was first published at the age of 13 in a Mississippi literary review. She enrolled in the University of Mississippi in 1981 where her writing caught the attention of writer Willie Morris. Based on his recommendation, she was admitted to a graduate short story course while still a freshman. At the suggestion of Morris and others she transferred to Bennington College in 1982, a private liberal arts college in Vermont.
She started writing what would become The Secret History in her second year at Bennington. It was published in 1992 and has since been published in 24 languages. Her second novel, The Little Friend, was published a decade later in 2002. Her third novel, The Goldfinch, was published in 2013.
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