LWS November Book Club: The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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, but here are all the nominees in case you want some additional books to put on your TBR. I've uploaded to photos so you can match the paragraph with the book.

1. 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.

2. I am doomed to remember a boy with a wrecked voice -- not because of his voice, or because he was the smallest person I ever knew, or even because he was the instrument of my mother's death, but because he is the reason I believe in God; I am a Christian because of Owen Meany.

3. The girl wakes up in someone else's bed.
She lies there, perfectly still, tries to hold time like a breath in her chest; as if she can keep the clock from ticking forward, keep the boy beside her from waking, keep the memory of their night alive through sheer force of will.
She knows, of course, that she can't. Knows that he'll forget. They always do.
It isn't his fault -- it is never their faults.

4. Cal Jenkins was born in the spring of 1920 with one leg shorter than the other. Just two inches shorter, but that was enough to make plenty of things difficult. Balancing on a bicycle took twice as long for him to learn as it did for other kids. Track and field was out of the question. So was walking without a pronounced limp or going up and down a set of stairs without securing himself on the railing -- until his father, amateur carpenter and junk collector, improved Cal's condition by carving a new, thicker sole out of tire rubber and nailing it onto his left shoe.

5. It's six a.m. and I'm the first one up. Spotify's playing that Chainsmokers song I like. If we go down, then we go down together... I take an Ativan and chase my morning coffee with a couple of splashes of hundred-proof Captain Morgan. I return the bottle to its hiding place inside the twenty quart lobster pot we never use, put the lid on, and put it back in the cabinet above the fridge that Emily can't reach without the step stool. Then I fill the twins' sippy cups and start making French toast for breakfast. If we go down, then we go down together. I cut the music so I can listen for the kids, but that song's probably going to play in my head all morning.

6. The last time we were at the Ritz in Paris I had my fifth marriage at breakfast.
This Christmas, I was no longer in contention for the same bizarre privilege. Now that I'd have my ovaries confiscated by my doctor, I found myself oscillating between staring at my husband and daughter adoringly and wondering how long it would take to drown myself in the Seine. It had become an unwritten family tradition that we always came to the Ritz for Christmas. This year as we drove to the hotel, with the moon beside us -- a fine lick of chrome in an upside-down crescent -- the driver pointed out landmarks I already knew well. I nodded, feigning interest before cutting him off to ask if he had a Motorola phone charger.

7. A girl comes of age against the knife. She must learn to bear its blade. To be cut. To bleed. To scar over and still, somehow, be beautiful and with good enough knees to take the sponge to the kitchen floor every Saturday. You're either lost or you're found. These truths can argue one another for an infinity. And what is infinity but a tangled swear. A cracked circle. A space of fuchisia sky. If we bring it down to earth, infinity is a series of rolling hills. A countryside in Ohio where all the tall-grass snakes know how angels lose their wings.

And the winner is.... #1 - The Secret History by Donna Tartt

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