The Secret History (Vintage Contemporaries) (Paperback)
Staff Reviews
This novel has been rotating within my top three favorite pieces since I read it. I remember checking it out from the library, reading it, and being so intrigued I went and renewed so I could read it again right away. Donna Tartt tells her story with such density and almost gothic suspense. "The Secret History" follows a group of classics students who tread the line between good and unspeakable evil. I recommend reading "The Secret History" before venturing to read Donna Tartt's Pulitzer Prize winning, and now movie, "The Goldfinch." For readers who enjoy suspense, a discussion of ethics, and dense prose, add "The Secret History" to your bookshelf.
— From Rose's Picks
This book will pull you in and never let go. Filled with suspense, drama, and beautiful prose. An indictment of the ivory rower, but also a murder mystery. Tragic, funny, and moving.
— From MeghanUnder the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.
“A remarkably powerful novel [and] a ferociously well-paced entertainment.... Forceful, cerebral, and impeccably controlled.” —The New York Times
“An accomplished psychological thriller .... Absolutely chilling .... Tartt has a stunning command of the lyrical.” —The Village Voice
“Beautifully written, suspenseful from start to finish.” —Vogue
“A huge, mesmerizing, galloping read, pleasurably devoured .... Gorgeously written, relentlessly erudite.” —Vanity Fair
“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 Philadephia Inquirer
“A haunting, compelling, and brilliant piece of fiction .... Packed with literary allusion and told with a sophistication and texture that owes much more to the nineteenth century than to the twentieth.” —The Times (London)