"'Perhaps at one time in my life I might have had any number of stories, but now there is no other. This is the only story I will ever be able to tell.' This is the perfect way to end the prologue of this phenomenal novel. I wish I could go back in time and read this novel again for the first time, because no re-read will ever compare to the initial shock and thrill of my first experience. It starts with a young West Coast student enrolling in a small, sequestered New England liberal arts college. Intent on studying Greek language, he falls in with an elite group of students under the exclusive tutorship of an eccentric Classicist. Beyond simply learning the language, the students embrace fully the mythos of Ancient Greece, discovering to their horror the true Dionysian consequences of madness. A masterful interplay of mystery, foreshadowing, and misdirection."
"Who would have thought that a group of Classics majors at an isolated New England college could get in to so much trouble? In The Secret History, a group of six students aim to experience firsthand the bacchanals that have fascinated them in their studies. Of course, this ends really, really badly. I wasn't quite sure of what to expect from this ensemble of characters, but I ended up purposefully took my time in finishing the book because I was so sad to lose them."
Publisher Vintage
Publication Date 2004-04-13
Section Fiction / All Staff Suggestions / Fiction Suggestions / Melissa S. / Archived Staff Suggestions / Isabel D.
Format Paperback
ISBN 9781400031702
Truly deserving of the accolade a modern classic, Donna Tartt’s novel is a remarkable achievement—both compelling and elegant, dramatic and playful.
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 morality their lives are changed profoundly and forever, and they discover how hard it can be to truly live and how easy it is to kill.
