The Little Friend
 First edition cover | |
| Author | Donna Tartt |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Chip Kidd |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Fiction |
| Publisher | Knopf |
Publication date | October 22, 2002 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover and Paperback) |
| Pages | 576 pp |
| ISBN | 0-679-43938-2 |
| OCLC | 49603052 |
| 813/.54 21 | |
| LC Class | PS3570.A657 L58 2002 |
The Little Friend is the second novel by the American author Donna Tartt. The novel was initially published by Alfred A. Knopf on October 22, 2002, a decade after her first novel, The Secret History.
The Little Friend follows a young girl, Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, living in Mississippi in the early 1970s. The story revolves around the unexplained death of Harriet's brother, Robin, who died by hanging in 1964 at the age of nine.[1] The aftermath of this early tragedy, as well as the dynamics of Harriet's extended family serves as the principal focus of the novel, which explores a broad spectrum of perspectives and aspects of Southern life.
In an interview with The Guardian in 2002, stated that The Little Friend was intentionally different from The Secret History, stating: "I wanted to take on a completely different set of technical problems. The Secret History was all from the point of view of Richard, a single camera, but the new book is symphonic, like War and Peace. That's widely thought to be the most difficult form."[1]
Plot
[edit]In the mid-1960s, on Mother's Day, Robin, the nine-year-old son of the Dufresnes, a white family living in Mississippi, is found hanging from a tree on the family property. Robin's death - which is assumed to be murder - causes his mother, Charlotte, to sink into a listless depression and his father, Dixon, to abandon the family on the pretext of work.
Twelve years later Robin's two younger sisters, Allison and Harriet, are now sixteen and twelve years old, respectively. Harriet is considered particularly difficult as she is highly intelligent, but uncompromising. Harriet has developed a morbid fascination with her brother and with the past of her matrilineal family, the Cleves. Her great-grandfather, Judge Cleve, once owned the local mansion, "Tribulation", but lost the family's wealth in his declining years.
Harriet's fascination with her brother's death leads her to decide to find the murderer. She enlists the reluctant help of her younger but devoted friend, a boy, Hely Hull. The Dufresnes' stalwart black maid, Ida Rhew, reveals that Robin had a fight with another boy shortly before his death. Harriet discovers that the boy is Danny Ratliff, the son of a highly dysfunctional local methamphetamine producing family. Farish Ratliff, an elder brother, runs the drug business with the help of Danny and with the connivance of his grandmother, Gum. Farish, not a particularly intelligent man, is planning a drug shipment hidden within a truck transporting venomous snakes, which another brother, Eugene, uses to support his Evangelical preaching.
Harriet believes that Danny is the murderer and resolves to exact revenge by stealing a cobra kept by Eugene, and dropping it into Danny's Trans Am vehicle. Harriet is also distraught at her parents' dismissal of the much-loved Ida. After a near disastrous encounter with the Ratliffs when the brothers attempt to transport the drugs, Harriet and Hely manage to steal the cobra from Eugene's office. They proceed to drop the snake into the Trans Am from an abandoned road bridge but discover that the car was being driven, not by Danny, but by his grandmother, Gum, who is bitten and hospitalized. The Ratliffs deduce that Harriet was involved in the attack and seek her out after she returns early from summer camp following the death of her favourite great-aunt.
Danny resolves to steal some of his own family's drugs and use them to buy his way out of town. Danny knows that the drugs have been hidden in a water tower, where Harriet finds them and throws them into the water. Farish becomes increasingly deranged by the consumption of his own product and forces Danny to take him for a drive. Danny drives towards the water tower where he fatally shoots Farish.
After killing his brother, Danny discovers Harriet in the water tower and attempts to drown her. Harriet, who has been practicing holding her breath, pretends to drown but is able to escape when Danny falls back into the water. Harriet climbs out of the tank, but the ladder collapses behind her, leaving Danny in the tank. Later, he is discovered, arrested and charged with his brother's murder.
Harriet's father visits her in hospital while she is recovering from her ordeal. He reveals that Danny was Robin's "little friend" and was distraught when he heard of Robin's death. The authorities never discover Harriet and Hely's involvement with the Ratliffs, as her doctors consider her condition to be the result of an epileptic episode.
The novel ends with Robin's death still a mystery.
Themes
[edit]In an interview with The Guardian in 2002, Tartt described The Little Friend as "a frightening, scary book about children coming into contact with the world of adults in a frightening way."[1] Publishers Weekly commented: "If the theme of The Secret History was intellectual arrogance, here it is dangerous innocence."[2]
Happiness and methods of coping with tragedy are explored throughout the book, as are: guilt; coming -of-age; obsession, as well as "misunderstanding, bereavement, solitude and straightforward cruelty."[3]
Christianity is referenced throughout the book in the form of snake handling preachers, Baptists, and Mormonism, as well as an epigraph attributed to Saint Thomas Aquinas.
Death is a theme explored in the book, along with that of cheating death. For Harriet, this fascination stems from her brother Robin's murder before she was old enough to know him. But this is also shown via Harriet's interest in Houdini, references to Lazarus in the Baptist church after Robin dies, Harriet's reading about Robert Falcon Scott, and Harriet's practicing holding her breath to imitate Houdini's underwater tricks.
Extended family dynamics and support systems are another theme of the book. In the wake of Robin's death, a network that includes Harriet's grandmother Edith, Harriet's three great aunts - Libby, Tat, and Adelaide - and the housekeeper Ida coalesce to help raise Harriet and Allison while their mother retreats to her bedroom most days and her father moves to another state for his job and has an extended affair.
Reception
[edit]The Daily Telegraph reported on reviews from several publications with a rating scale for the novel out of "Love It", "Pretty Good", "Ok", and "Rubbish": Daily Telegraph, Independent, Sunday Telegraph, Independent On Sunday, and New Statesman reviews under "Love It" and Guardian and Spectator reviews under "Pretty Good" and Observer, Sunday Times, and TLS reviews under "Ok".[4] On January/February 2003 issue of Bookmarks, the book received three and a half out of five stars. The magazine's critical summary reads: "The Little Friend reconfirms Tartt’s rare talents as “a born storyteller” (Boston Globe)".[5] The Herald assessed reviews as the "critical thermometer" of "Tepid". The magazine's verdict reads: "A sprawling melo-drama that can't decide where to go or how to get there. Contains some exciting scenes but milks others. She seems intent on dissipating tension through both reams of superfluous detail and clumsy third-person narrative".[6] Globally, Complete Review saying on the consensus "Many reservations but generally impressed. And almost all feel obligated to draw comparisons to Tartt's previous novel, The Secret History".[7]
Both Ruth Franklin of The New Republic and A. O. Scott of The New York Times reviewed the book positively. Franklin highlighted Tartt's literary "obsess[ion] with crimes that go unpunished,"[8] while Scott described the book as "tragic, fever-dream realism."[9]
The novel won the WH Smith Literary Award[10] and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction in 2003.[11]
Book Cover Design
[edit]The jacket design is by Chip Kidd, a New York City book cover designer.[12]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c Viner, Katharine. "A talent to tantalise," The Guardian, October 19, 2002.
- ^ "THE LITTLE FRIEND by Donna Tartt". www.publishersweekly.com. March 26, 2025. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
- ^ Walter, Natasha (2002-10-26). "Soaringly, incredulously, gorgeously cruel..." The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2025-03-26.
- ^ "Books of the moment: What the papers say". The Daily Telegraph. 2 Nov 2002. p. 60. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ "The Little Friend" (PDF). Bookmarks. p. 50. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 Jul 2004. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
- ^ "The reviewers reviewed: the weekly round-up of critical reaction to the major arts events of the past week". The Herald. 1 Nov 2002. Retrieved 19 July 2024.
- ^ "The Little Friend". Complete Review. 2023-10-04. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
- ^ Franklin, Ruth. "Morbid Longings," The New Republic, December 30, 2002. Archived September 29, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Scott, A. O. "Harriet the Spy", The New York Times, November 3, 2002.
- ^ "WH Smith Literary Award | Book awards | LibraryThing". www.librarything.com. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
- ^ Gibbons, Fiachra; correspondent, arts (2003-04-25). "Orange prize shortlist goes for the big names". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
{{cite news}}:|last2=has generic name (help) - ^ "Chip Kidd". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 2019-10-11.
External links
[edit]- Video
- Audio