- Hardcover: 523 pages
- Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf; Prima edizione (First edition) edition (1 July 2002)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679410325
- ISBN-13: 978-0679410324
- Product Dimensions: 14.9 x 4.1 x 24.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 351,348 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A transfer student from a small town in California, Richard Papen is determined to affect the ways of his Hampden College peers, and he begins his intense studies under the tutelage of eccentric Julian Morrow. BOMC & QPB Alt. Tour.
From the Back Cover
"A beautifully written story, well-told, funny, sad, scary, and impossible to leave alone until I finished. . . . What a debut!" --John Grisham
"Powerful . . . Enthralling . . . A ferociously well-paced entertainment." --The New York Times
"An accomplished psychological thriller . . . Absolutely chilling . . . Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical." -- The Village Voice
"A smart, craftsman-like, viscerally compelling novel." --Time
"A thinking-person's thriller . . . Think Lord of the Flies, then The Rules of Attraction. . . . The Secret History combines a bit of both--the unmistakable whiff of evil from William Golding's classic and the mad recklessness of priviledged youth from Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the '80s. . . . As stony and chilling as any Greek tragedian ever plumbed." --New York Newsday
"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
"The Secret History implicates the reader in a conspiracy which begins in bucolic enchantment and ends exactly where it must--though a less gifted or fearless writer would never have been able to imagine such a rich skein of consequence. Donna Tartt has written a mesmerizing and powerful novel." --Jay McInerney
"Donna Tartt has invested this simple and suspenseful plot with a considerable amount of atmosphere and philosophical significance. . . . She's a very good writer indeed." --The Washington Post Book World
"A glorious achievement . . . The Secret History is a grand read--an artful blend of intelligence, entertainment, and suspense that quickens the pulse." --The Virginian Pilot & Ledger-Star
"Beautifully written, suspenseful from start to finish." --Vogue
"One of the best American college novels to come along since John Knowles's A Seperate Peace. . . . Immensely entertaining." --Houston Chronicle
"Donna Tartt is clearly a gifted writer. . . . The cadence of her sentences, the authority with which she shaped 500-plus pages of an erudite page-turner indicate she has the ability to leave her literary contemporaries standing in the road. . . . The decision to murder has about it the inevitability of classical Greek tragedy." --The Miami Herald
"Donna Tartt has a real shot at becoming her generation's Edgar Allan Poe. . . . The Secret History pulses like a telltale heart on steroids." --Glamour
"Powerful . . . Enthralling . . . A ferociously well-paced entertainment." --The New York Times
"An accomplished psychological thriller . . . Absolutely chilling . . . Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical." -- The Village Voice
"A smart, craftsman-like, viscerally compelling novel." --Time
"A thinking-person's thriller . . . Think Lord of the Flies, then The Rules of Attraction. . . . The Secret History combines a bit of both--the unmistakable whiff of evil from William Golding's classic and the mad recklessness of priviledged youth from Bret Easton Ellis's novel of the '80s. . . . As stony and chilling as any Greek tragedian ever plumbed." --New York Newsday
"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
"The Secret History implicates the reader in a conspiracy which begins in bucolic enchantment and ends exactly where it must--though a less gifted or fearless writer would never have been able to imagine such a rich skein of consequence. Donna Tartt has written a mesmerizing and powerful novel." --Jay McInerney
"Donna Tartt has invested this simple and suspenseful plot with a considerable amount of atmosphere and philosophical significance. . . . She's a very good writer indeed." --The Washington Post Book World
"A glorious achievement . . . The Secret History is a grand read--an artful blend of intelligence, entertainment, and suspense that quickens the pulse." --The Virginian Pilot & Ledger-Star
"Beautifully written, suspenseful from start to finish." --Vogue
"One of the best American college novels to come along since John Knowles's A Seperate Peace. . . . Immensely entertaining." --Houston Chronicle
"Donna Tartt is clearly a gifted writer. . . . The cadence of her sentences, the authority with which she shaped 500-plus pages of an erudite page-turner indicate she has the ability to leave her literary contemporaries standing in the road. . . . The decision to murder has about it the inevitability of classical Greek tragedy." --The Miami Herald
"Donna Tartt has a real shot at becoming her generation's Edgar Allan Poe. . . . The Secret History pulses like a telltale heart on steroids." --Glamour
Inside This Book
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First Sentence
DOES SUCH a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
DOES SUCH a thing as "the fatal flaw," that showy dark crack running down the middle of a life, exist outside literature? Read the first page
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Concordance
Browse Sample PagesConcordance
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 25 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
From the outside looking in present day America appears obsessed with little more than pop culture, gun culture and the prime time bleatings of Oprah and Jerry; but a vastly different nation emerges from the pages of this extraordinary novel, focusing on a mysterious class of Greek language students whose cerebral pursuits turn distinctly nasty. The narrative is provided by Richard, a native of California who transfers to Hampden College on the East coast in an attempt to bury his small town past of TV dinners and gas stations. The students at Hampden are a different breed; moneyed offspring of the rich and powerful, and with little money and no friends he enrolls in the Greek class, hiding his social inadequacies behind a semi-fictitious identity. He becomes a drinking pal of the gregarious Bunny, a confidant to effeminate Francis and a trusted friend of the beautiful twins, Charles and Camilla. But it is Henry who makes the biggest impression upon him, with his towering intellect and ruthless pragmatism, and when Richard stumbles upon a thinly veiled secret of Henry's he delves deeper into the illicit twilight world of his new friends. As realisation dawns on him of his friend's murderous deeds he is forced to choose between communal loyalty and revealing to the police his knowledge of their crimes. His decision to remain silent contrasts starkly with that of a fellow classmate whose threatened betrayal results in the group's ultimate destruction, bringing with it fatal consequences. The Secret History is a surreal exploration of privileged youth educated beyond its means and lacking the moral strength or incentive to rein in its most primal desires. By combining the elements of a thriller with a coming-of-age drama, and adopting an almost European introspection Tartt has made an astonishing debut and achieved one of the literary landmarks of the Nineties, at the same time offering a disturbing allegory of modern day America. This is a novel that has to be read to be believed. Donna Tartt is a literary giant in the making ... What a talent!
Format:Paperback
A really good psychological thriller with a difference. The killer is known from the start, but this only intensifies the 'page turning'.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Despite having read all the great reviews for this novel, I was reluctant to read it. Or maybe because of having read all the great reviews, I was reluctant to read it. Hype can often lead to disappointment, and I hate to be disappointed...
Well, I wasn't disappointed, but something niggled me. I found The Secret History to be both a well-written and a compelling read. Yet describing it as a modern classic makes me feel somewhat uneasy. Admittedly, people are still buying it now so it is standing the test of time to some extent. But a modern classic...?
The characters aren't particularly likeable, even though you are given quite an insight into their lives, and if you don't really warm to the characters, and are able to empathise with them, it can be quite a chore reading about them. The premise of the story is good, yet in parts I found it predictable. And some of the prose seemed superfluous.
I imagine that all the references to the classics will make this book appeal to a perhaps more high brow audience, but take away these references and quotes and you are left with little more than a tale of college life, with a murder thrown in. In fact, The Secret History could be a more high brow version of Brett Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction.
The Secret History is worth reading but read it with an open mind - don't expect this book to change your life.
Well, I wasn't disappointed, but something niggled me. I found The Secret History to be both a well-written and a compelling read. Yet describing it as a modern classic makes me feel somewhat uneasy. Admittedly, people are still buying it now so it is standing the test of time to some extent. But a modern classic...?
The characters aren't particularly likeable, even though you are given quite an insight into their lives, and if you don't really warm to the characters, and are able to empathise with them, it can be quite a chore reading about them. The premise of the story is good, yet in parts I found it predictable. And some of the prose seemed superfluous.
I imagine that all the references to the classics will make this book appeal to a perhaps more high brow audience, but take away these references and quotes and you are left with little more than a tale of college life, with a murder thrown in. In fact, The Secret History could be a more high brow version of Brett Easton Ellis's The Rules of Attraction.
The Secret History is worth reading but read it with an open mind - don't expect this book to change your life.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
I don't know how it ends yet!
Am near the end of the book and hope the ending doesn't let me down. However so far I've very much enjoyed her wonderfully descriptive classic style of writing, in a story which... Read more
Published on 16 Nov 2003
Entirely Captivating
Donna Tartt's lead character in her other novel (The Little Friend) says how she hates books where the characters grow up because nothing interesting ever happens after they do. Read more
Published on 11 Nov 2003 by "amyjoanne"
A psycological mystery along the lines of a Greek tragedy.
I can't convey the magic of this novel in words. It is a psychological mystery that insinuates itelf and its themes into your mind and it is, to use a cliche, unputdownable. Read more
Published on 19 Mar 1999
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