Author: Donna Tartt
Published by: Penguin
My Rating ★★★★★
Under the influence of their charismatic Classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries.
​But when they go beyond the boundaries of normal mortality their lives are changed profoundly and for ever.
The Secret History follows Richard Papen as he transfers from California to Hampden College in New England. He joins a small elite group who study Greek and are obsessed with the classics—taught by an eccentric and mysterious professor who teaches them a different way of thinking.
The six students latch on to the elderly professor of Greek, creating a kind of 'cult' that leads to murder and, all in all, the death of three people. The story is told from the point of view of the outsider in the group: he's the only kid from the west coast and the only one on financial aid. Richard recounts the events that led up to the murder of one of his classmates and all that happens afterwards. ​
​"Everything was going beautifully, on the brink of taking wing, and I had a feeling that I'd never had, that reality itself was transforming around us in some beautiful and dangerous fashion, that we were being driven by a force we didn't understand, towards an end I did not know."
​The Secret History is both an intellectual novel of ideas and a murder mystery without the 'whodunnit' element. This is because the reader learns on the first page that Richard and his friends have killed one among their midst. The rest of the book goes on to explain how they came to their gruesome deed and the events that follow. It is a fascinating, complex and very intelligent story that kept me guessing.
Somehow the book has a dreamlike, almost hypnotic quality, despite it being very firmly set in the rather unromantic 1980s. I quickly fell in love with the writing which was both beautiful and lyrical. Against all odds, it makes for compelling reading, despite the fact that you already know right from the start who the killers are.
Ultimately, what I think I respond to most in The Secret History is the friendship aspect. The Secret History is very much a book about friendship. The boys are called "eccentric", but eccentric doesn't quite cut it. They are like no boys I've ever met; dressing only in dark suits and silken cravats, while the lone female is called Camilla, smokes, speaks with a gravely femme-fatale voice and wears over-sized cashmere sweaters whilst being compared, in appearance, to Helen of Troy.
If you haven't read The Secret History yet and are considering it, I'd recommend giving the book a go if you're a fan of dense literary novels and don't always need a moral protagonist to root for. And if you do decide to pick it up, I can only urge you to suspend your disbelief and get caught in the web for just over 600 pages. In my opinion, The Secret History is not a book for devouring in one sitting, but rather a book slowly savoured.