Donna Tartt "The Secret History"

01 Aug, 2025

Oh, I'm so glad my friend wanted to reread this book - it's one of her favorites. And now I love it too!

You might know Donna Tartt, an American author, from The Goldfinch (there's a movie adaptation), which earned her both the Pulitzer Prize and the Andrew Carnegie Medal. But The Secret History was actually her debut novel, published in 1992. It's partly autobiographical - and that's important, because beyond her obvious talent, it’s the fact that she lived through similar events and likely saw the people she later wrote about that makes the characters feel so alive. While reading, I could practically see them, feel them, understand them.

Some quick background from Wikipedia:

Donna Tartt, originally from the South, enrolled at the University of Mississippi in 1981 and did so well she was encouraged to transfer to the prestigious Bennington College. She graduated with a degree in classics in 1986. There, she met Bret Easton Ellis (of American Psycho fame), to whom The Secret History is partly dedicated. She started writing the novel in 1984, during her sophomore year.

Plot in a nutshell:

Set in a small New England college called Hampden, the novel follows a tightly knit group of six students studying ancient Greek. It’s a reverse murder mystery, narrated by one of the six - Richard Papen - looking back on the events that led to the murder of their friend, Edmund “Bunny” Corcoran. One more thing worth mentioning: The novel explores how academia and the arts shape one's identity.

My thoughts as I read:

From the very beginning, I hated every character (except the protagonist), even though our MC admired them all. He reminded me so much of myself halfway through university - studying Latin and philosophy, feeling slightly superior to mere philology students because, you know, “I’m a linguist,” thinking I had life all figured out just because I could quote ancient philosophers and debate the abstract while dismissing the concerns of “ordinary people.” Life bored me, and I was desperate for something - anything - to spark my interest, as long as it matched my idea of what was “worthy.”

But in reality, I was just a slightly more educated but completely lost young person, trying to find meaning, connection, love - even if I didn’t know how to name those needs yet.

Richard’s motivations were crystal clear to me - at least partly because we’re seeing everything through his eyes. I really enjoyed watching his character evolve. It was satisfying to realize - almost thirty years old now - that I could immediately spot which characters were the toxic ones. Growth! Some basic understanding of rich-kid archetypes at last.

About halfway through the book, the other characters also started to feel real. I could finally tell them apart (their quirks, their habits, their personalities) and how different they were from Richard. (Spoiler: most of them managed to piss me off again later. No regrets.)

To me, this novel is ultimately about the power and danger of mentorship. Most of us probably had that one adult in our life who we looked up to, who seemed like they held all the answers. And that kind of figure can mess you up - not even through grooming or drugs or anything dramatic, but just by planting a way of thinking that warps your whole worldview. Especially if that worldview isn’t real, but a performance made possible by money, privilege, and illusion. Most of the world doesn’t - and can’t - function that way.

It may not make sense now, but when you read it - you’ll get it.

Even though you know the outcome from page one, the story goes way beyond that. What truly matters is everything before and after that terrible event. What caused it. What came of it.

This book constantly surprised me. Just when you think the story’s headed one way - BAM, plot twist - and you're left sitting there with your jaw dropped, going: “Wait, WHAT?!”

I was both annoyed and charmed by the characters... because I understood them. Some were relatable; others I could only understand thanks to a bit of lived experience.

But this novel won’t leave you indifferent. It’s emotional. It’s immersive. You’ll be putting the book down mid-paragraph just to think about something that struck a nerve.

Also, it’s packed with references and quotes - from general history to specific figures from ancient Greece and Rome. If you studied this stuff “a long time ago,” you’ll enjoy the flashbacks.

Reading it felt almost magical. Like I, too, was peeking into the strange, rare world of these beautiful, broken birds. A world I once dreamed of belonging to.

It’s hard to explain, but I haven’t felt this way from a book in ages. All I can do is sing Donna Tartt’s praises and say: thank you.

Oh and at the beginning it reminded me a lot of The Magus, which annoyed me because I can’t stand that book. But hey, maybe that reference will click for someone.

I’m definitely planning to read her other books, including The Goldfinch. And I’m genuinely excited for someone to make a terrible screen adaptation of The Secret History, just so I can watch it in theaters and complain the whole time.

Run, don’t walk, to read this novel about a bunch of weird, damaged twenty-somethings you probably used to think you were too.