The Secret History By Donna Tartt

About The Book

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 for ever.

Truly deserving of the accolade Modern Classic, Donna Tartt's cult bestseller The Secret History is a remarkable achievement - both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.

Review

"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

"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 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

"One of the best American college novels to come along since John Knowles's A Seperate Peace. . . . Immensely entertaining." --Houston Chronicle

About Author

Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt, born in 1963, is an American novelist, writer, and critic. She is the winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) for The Goldfinch. The author won the 2003 WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend. She was born in Greenwood, Mississippi. Tartt joined the University of Mississippi in 1981, but transferred to Bennington College one year later, from where she graduated in 1986. The author’s literary works follow themes such as social stratification, guilt, and aesthetic beauty. Tartt now lives in New York City.