The Little Friend
After Donna Tartt’s The Secret History, which I’ve read twice already and very likely will again, it’s hard to open her second novel without having expectations or making comparisons. (The average rating of this book on Amazon is down to 2.5, I think, for that reason.)
To get those out of the way, then: the wonderful first-person narrative of The Secret History is absent, as is the whole atmosphere of the university setting. The beautiful descriptions I remembered are nowhere to be found.
Even so, I did like it. Judging The Little Friend on its own, which is probably how it should be judged, I liked it even more.
Donna Tartt is great at slipping acute observations on everyday details in, and for me, that alone made it a fun read. It’s obvious she gives a lot of thought to each word. She says as much in an interview on Identity Theory:
It is just pebble by pebble by pebble by pebble. I write one sentence until I am happy with it until I go on to the next one and write that one until I am happy with it. And I look at my paragraph and if I am not happy with that I’ll write the paragraph until I’m happy with it and then I go on this way.
The plot’s simple enough: twelve-year-old Harriet sets out to find her brother’s murderer and extract her revenge, aided by her devoted friend Hely. Harriet is a wonderfully developed character who I found myself liking despite any personality flaws. And though the events are all rather unlikely, they are, somehow, completely believable.
If The Little Friend sounds interesting and you’d like a more thorough review, Salon.com’s is very well done.
One Comment, Comment or Ping
Linda Belle
Great review, I can’t wait to read the book! I read The Secret History a year ago and I can’t forget about it. It almost reminds me of Daniel Handler’s A Basic Eight, however, Donna Tart really has her own unique thumb print in literature.
I stumbled on your site a while back and I didn’t even think about commenting you! I was so dedicated to reading the site it simply did not occur to me! I really love Novelish, it’s even on my firefox favourite bar so I can quickly access it. You’ve inspired me to do book reviews on my own site (which lacks its usual basic content because I’m in the process of moving it and creating a theme for it). I plan on writing a review for The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón. I bought it right after I bought Labyrinth by Kate Mosse (I haven’t read Labyrinth yet, I wish I had found your site before I purchased it.) The Shadow of the Wind on the other hand is one of the best books I’ve ever read, I would recommend it to you with ten shining stars.
Well, welcome to the blogging community. :-) I’m very glad you’ve arrived!
Jul 3rd, 2007
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