The Secret History

This came out in 1992, but had been on my TBR list for ages, as I loved The Goldfinch so much. Donna Tartt is an incredible writer; I still can’t believe that this was her debut! I love that it seems to take her ten years between books–can you imagine!? I decided to finally tackle it this month as it felt like the perfect fall read: dark and academic, cozy in all the right ways. Richard Papen transfers to an elite liberal arts college in Vermont. It is the eighties, and Richard comes from a poor background. He is there on scholarship, just scrapping by. He is drawn into a small group of five students and their enigmatic professor when he decides to major in Greek. The other students are worldly and come from privileged backgrounds. At first, he just wants to be included, to be a friend. But as he gets closer to the other students, dark secrets arise. He learns that the others have committed a violent crime and feel they need to murder their fifth classmate and friend, and he becomes an accomplice. (This isn’t a spoiler; the book opens with the murder.) The book deals with the lead-up to the murder and then the aftermath. It is dark and propulsive, I couldn’t put it down (but also wanted to savor the writing, it’s incredibly well done!).