Although the Cleves generally revelled in every detail of their family history, the events of 'the terrible Mother's Day' were never, ever discussed. On that day, nine-year-old Robin Cleves, was found hanging by the neck from a rope slung over a black-tupelo tree in his own garden. Twelve years later, the mystery - with its taunting traces of foul play - was no nearer a solution than it had been on the day it happened.This isn't good enough for Robin's youngest sister Harriet. Only a baby when the tragedy occurred, but now twelve years old, Harriet is ready and eager to find and punish her brother's killer. Her closest friend Hely - who would try anything to make Harriet love him - has sworn allegiance to her call for revenge. But the world these plucky twelve-year-olds are to encounter is not child's play: it is dark, adult and all too menacing. In Donna Tartt's Mississippi, the sense of place and sense of the past mingle with rich human drama to create a powerful alchemy. Here a child's inquiring mind not only unearths telling family artefacts, but stirs up a neighbourhood nest of vipers and larceny. THE LITTLE FRIEND is a profoundly involving novel which demonstrates how the imaginary life embraces what literature we read, what special places we inhabit and what kindred souls we recognize, to help crack open even the darkest secrets life has hiding for us.
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"..a mesmerising tale" -- Good House Keeping, November 2003
"an intelligent, elegant novel that, unlike her debut, manages to be clever without being arch or self-conscious" -- The Scotsman, 18th October 2003
"an unputdownable, astonishing feat of writing which soars above all of the hype. This is a novel of sheer brilliance." -- The Leeds Guide, October/November 2003
"exquisitely crafted" -- The Sunday Tribune, 12th October 2003
"her writing is simply magical." -- Boyd tonkin, Independet magazine
'A dazzling tour de force' -- Daily Mail
'Beautifully written and immaculately crafted ... even though there's humour, the tension is palpable. Unputdownable' -- Daily Mirror
'Harriet is one of the most engaging and rounded characters you are likely to find ... gorgeous, fluent, visual' -- The Times
"an intelligent, elegant novel that, unlike her debut, manages to be clever without being arch or self-conscious" -- The Scotsman, 18th October 2003
"an unputdownable, astonishing feat of writing which soars above all of the hype. This is a novel of sheer brilliance." -- The Leeds Guide, October/November 2003
"exquisitely crafted" -- The Sunday Tribune, 12th October 2003
"her writing is simply magical." -- Boyd tonkin, Independet magazine
'A dazzling tour de force' -- Daily Mail
'Beautifully written and immaculately crafted ... even though there's humour, the tension is palpable. Unputdownable' -- Daily Mirror
'Harriet is one of the most engaging and rounded characters you are likely to find ... gorgeous, fluent, visual' -- The Times
About the Author
Donna Tartt is a novelist, essayist and critic. Her first novel, THE SECRET HISTORY, has been published in twenty-three languages.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By C. Lloyd
Reading some of the other reviews on here made me mad... Okay, people are allowed their opinions, but come on! This is one of the most fantastic books that I've read - and that's saying something. The writing is so atmospherically perfect and the story is powerful and engrossing. This is a masterpiece - even though I hate using that word - by anyone's standards. Please read this book. It is exquisite.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
It took me a very very long time to read this - it starts a bit slowly and is probably the kind of novel that you should take on holiday rather than read in little snippets. But once I got into it (on holiday!), I was totally absorbed. The most striking aspect of it to begin with was the incredibly evocative writing style, which has something almost poetic about it. Then, I was really taken with the author's ability to get inside the heads of some many completely different characters so convincingly. The real drama of the plot doesn't develop until the latter half of the book, but I found it completely compelling. This is one the best books that I have read in recent years and would recommend it to readers who are looking for a beautifully crafted novel. However, my husband could not get into it as there was not enough of a plot at the beginning to get him to read on, so it is not for everyone.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
I enjoyed The Secret History by Donna Tartt a great deal. In fact it is one of the best books that I have read in a long time. Therefore I may have been expecting too much from The Little Friend. I feel like I wasted my time on this book. The plot was in turn obscure or non-existent. This book did not provide a satisfactory conclusion for me. The ending was extremely weak. I would not really recommend this book as there are better books in the world that are much shorter and with a better plot.
26 of 30 people found the following review helpful
By Tiger
This book is really frustrating. The first hundred pages are brilliant - you get a main character who is completely unique, funny and intriguing placed in a community with a terrible history. At page 100 you're mouth is watering at the prospect of how Harriet powered by her imagination is going to unravel the mystery and in the process cause an outpouring of chaos and disorder in the town.
Then instead of maybe another couple of hundred pages of drama and powerful conclusion 'The Little Friend' turns into a big rambling bore of a novel - where you actually begin counting the pages and feeling pleased you got through another half-inch of it.
I am sure the purpose of the middle section is to deepen the characters and the sense of place but many of these long passages are simply repetitions of other character/place development passages. I always thought brevity was a virtue and repetition a vice of literature and I'm sure Tartt's main aim here in writing this section was to write something 'long'. It's terrible to see her sacrifice all of the suspense and intrigue she has created initially but this is what she does.
It reminded me of the film 'The Graduate' where the director plays the 'Strawberry Fayre' tune over and over again until you actually feel as irritated as Hoffman's character. Is Tartt trying to irritate us too?
I always wonder if these 'hype' books get away with so much bad editing because of the writers ego or maybe because the 'hypers' haven't read anything better. In which case for a dramatic and evocative vision of the south I recommend Flannery O'Connor's 'The Violent Bear it away' Daniel Woodrell's 'The Ones You Do' and Joe R Lansdale's 'The Bottoms'.
Then instead of maybe another couple of hundred pages of drama and powerful conclusion 'The Little Friend' turns into a big rambling bore of a novel - where you actually begin counting the pages and feeling pleased you got through another half-inch of it.
I am sure the purpose of the middle section is to deepen the characters and the sense of place but many of these long passages are simply repetitions of other character/place development passages. I always thought brevity was a virtue and repetition a vice of literature and I'm sure Tartt's main aim here in writing this section was to write something 'long'. It's terrible to see her sacrifice all of the suspense and intrigue she has created initially but this is what she does.
It reminded me of the film 'The Graduate' where the director plays the 'Strawberry Fayre' tune over and over again until you actually feel as irritated as Hoffman's character. Is Tartt trying to irritate us too?
I always wonder if these 'hype' books get away with so much bad editing because of the writers ego or maybe because the 'hypers' haven't read anything better. In which case for a dramatic and evocative vision of the south I recommend Flannery O'Connor's 'The Violent Bear it away' Daniel Woodrell's 'The Ones You Do' and Joe R Lansdale's 'The Bottoms'.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By Eileen Shaw
TOP 500 REVIEWER
Sorry for shouting in my title, but I am just amazed at some of the reviews this book got on Amazon. As one reviewer points out, if people were expecting The Secret History Part II, no wonder they were disappointed. True fans of Donna Tartt's The Secret History will not be disappointed. This time she nails down a whole town, from the faded gentility of the upper class suburbs, to the redneck, downtown, trailer-trash poor. The novel is both deeply absorbing and breathlessly exciting as Tartt once again faultlessly explores a time (the early 70s), a place, (small-town southern U.S.A.) and a murder.
Harriet Cleve Dufresnes is 12 years old. Ten years ago her elder brother Robin was brutally killed in his own back yard as the family gathered for Thanksgiving. No one was caught for the crime, the police were baffled and it became accepted that this was one of those random, horrific killings that descend arbitrarily because that's the way of the world. But Harriet, bored, clever, neglected, thinks she's found a clue in the photograph of one of Robin's classmates and a combination of gossip and coincidence. At the start of her summer holiday, Harriet decides that she will be the agent of revenge.
The plot is rambling, exhausting, yet wholly, delightfully, readable, and the characters, every one of a very large cast, stand out strongly as believable, fallible, rounded human beings. It's a very long book (555 pages of sheer compulsion) but I wished it were longer and several of the characters have stayed with me, living on in my imagination as I wondered, particularly of the children, what they would become as they grew up.
It took Tartt ten years to write this book - let's hope the next one comes faster.
Harriet Cleve Dufresnes is 12 years old. Ten years ago her elder brother Robin was brutally killed in his own back yard as the family gathered for Thanksgiving. No one was caught for the crime, the police were baffled and it became accepted that this was one of those random, horrific killings that descend arbitrarily because that's the way of the world. But Harriet, bored, clever, neglected, thinks she's found a clue in the photograph of one of Robin's classmates and a combination of gossip and coincidence. At the start of her summer holiday, Harriet decides that she will be the agent of revenge.
The plot is rambling, exhausting, yet wholly, delightfully, readable, and the characters, every one of a very large cast, stand out strongly as believable, fallible, rounded human beings. It's a very long book (555 pages of sheer compulsion) but I wished it were longer and several of the characters have stayed with me, living on in my imagination as I wondered, particularly of the children, what they would become as they grew up.
It took Tartt ten years to write this book - let's hope the next one comes faster.
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3.7 out of 5 stars
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Victory...
I like to browse through the Amazon reviews but felt the need to add one myself for The Little Friend. I find it hard to understand why this book is getting such low ratings. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Sam Simoneaux
4.0 out of 5 stars
Not a Murder Mystery but a very good story.
I can only reiterate the other positive (and even negative) reviews. This is a long book, longer even that its 500 odd pages suggests because the type is fairly small. Read more
Published 10 months ago by Leven1
5.0 out of 5 stars
Not a whodunnit-nor a disappointment
I couldnt put this book down. Yes it is long .but brilliant-one of those books that is so finely crafted that you're in the book alongside the characters, and its hard to leave... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Miss Wells
3.0 out of 5 stars
Slow, slow, quick quick, oh no.
Having read The Secret History (one of my favourite books) I knew we would not necessarily be in for a roller-coaster ride in the opening chapters, that the intricacies of the... Read more
Published 17 months ago by Essex Girl
2.0 out of 5 stars
Frustratingly long and no ending
I really struggled to finish this book, but when I finally did, I wondered why I had bothered. Long padding paragraphs that I skipped over, a rambling plot and then it stops... Read more
Published on 21 Mar 2011 by N. J. Poston
2.0 out of 5 stars
Such high hopes..........
Having read Secret History which I had found riveting and wonderful in every way, I had 'saved' The Little Friend to read as a 'treat' over the summer.......and I loathed it!! Read more
Published on 16 Aug 2009 by Books keep me sane
3.0 out of 5 stars
Yes yes yes!...On no.
Fantastic opening that gets you hooked from the start, followed by a slow, rich, multi-layered narrative full of wonderful characters which is really rewarding and enjoyable if a... Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2008 by daisyrock
1.0 out of 5 stars
INSULTING, LABOURED AND DREARY!
A few years back Donna Tartt was at home, having her hair cut into a geometric bob whilst counting her royalties from 'The Secret History' when the phone rang.
'Hello? Read more
'Hello? Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2008 by L. Mueller
1.0 out of 5 stars
Donna Tartt - The Little Friend
Donna Tart is a technically accomplished writer. Her characters are lifelike, her dialogue is convincing and she sets scene and mood beautifully. Read more
Published on 11 Sep 2008 by J. E. Buckwell
5.0 out of 5 stars
Brilliant, beautiful, difficult, exceptionally elegant
Was everyone expecting The Secret History Part II?? No wonder they're disappointed!
This is an amazing book. Amazing. Better than her debut. Read more
This is an amazing book. Amazing. Better than her debut. Read more
Published on 24 April 2008 by L. Rawes
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