LWS November Book Club: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Details
November's Book Club Theme is....First Lines.
To me, the most important part of the novel is the very first chapter, the first page, the first paragraph, the first line. The beginning of a novel should set the tone for the rest of the story and, from the first line, establish the voice of the character.
At our September Book Club meeting, we read the first paragraphs of seven novels and each voted on one we would like to continue to read further. We announced the winner at the meeting, and the chosen book based on first lines was....
And the winner is.... #1 - The Secret History by Donna Tartt
First Lines of The Secret History - The snow in the mountains was melting and Bunny had been dead for several weeks before we came to understand the gravity of our situation. He'd been dead for ten days before they found him, you know. It was one of the bigger manhunts in Vermont history -- state troopers, the FBI, even an army helicopter; the college closed, the dye factory in Hampden shut down, people coming from New Hampshire, upstate New York, as far away as Boston.
Summary : Under 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.
ONE OF TIME MAGAZINE'S 100 BEST MYSTERY AND THRILLER BOOKS OF ALL TIME • INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • A contemporary literary classic and "an accomplished psychological thriller ... absolutely chilling" (Village Voice), from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Goldfinch.
One of The Atlantic’s Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years
Published: September 11, 1992
Pages: Hardcover 524, Kindle 573, Paperback 576
Audiobook: 22 hours, 3 minutes. Narrated by the author.
Further Reading and Viewing:
- READ: Donna Tartt Answers 11 Questions about The Secret History with Jenna Bush
- Listen: Donna Tartt's Interview with the John Adams Institute
Location: TBD