The Secret History
by Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt’s global blockbuster The Secret History follows six Classics students at Hampden College, an elite—somewhat louche—institution loosely based on Vermont’s Bennington College, where Tartt herself was a student. As our narrator Richard Papen reflects on the events leading up to the death of his friend Edmund ‘Bunny’ Corcoran, The Secret History explores the limits of morality and the devastating consequences of secrets. Credited with inspiring the ‘dark academia’ trend, Tartt draws us into the lives of a socially isolated cohort and their eccentric professor at an elite liberal arts college as their lives are forever altered. Since publication in 1992, The Secret History has been translated into 24 languages and sold over 5 million copies worldwide.
Recommendations from our site
“This was the first novel by Donna Tartt. It famously took her many, many years to write. It’s set at a small exclusive college in New England – probably at Bennington, although that’s not what she calls it – where a student shows up who’s an outsider. He comes from suburban California, and he somehow finds his way into this clique of students who have gathered around a very influential professor of classics. Together, they plumb the mysteries of the ancient world, which leads to them reenacting cultic rituals and strange phenomena and violent behaviour. They go down the rabbit hole of dark academia, and that turns out to be a very scary and dangerous place. It’s something of a thriller, and something of a mystery, but also written with a great amount of literary flair.” Read more...
Lev Grossman, Novelist
“We know from the outset that one of their group is dead and that they are responsible. So this isn’t like some of the other books, where you don’t know who’s going to die or who the perpetrators are. You know that from the opening line. So the joy and the pleasure in this book is watching it unfold. It’s about the group dynamics and how those play out and change and allegiances shift throughout the course of the novel” Read more...
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