My latest book was The Secret History, by Donna Tartt, which I finished last week--and then took up Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country, a completely different kind of book. More about that later I hope.
Tartt is the author of The Goldfinch, and both of these books reveal an imagination by the author that goes into such detail the lives of the characters are fleshed out in such detail you can see them walking the streets.
I was a little disappointed by the ending of The Secret History, but Tartt takes the reader on a spectacular ride through a little Vermont town and its liberal arts college. The students there, who make up the cast, are insulated by the wealth of their families, which allows them to indulge in ways most of us only imagine--and generally frown upon. One exception is the narrator, who (like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby) is an outsider, a student there on scholarship, not wealth. This character, Richard, is taken in by a group of wealthy students, and he hides his western, middle-class background from them.
This mix of students, and the faculty member who dotes on them, are ripe for trouble, and Tartt gives it to them in spades. Though it sometimes left me marveling--and wondering--about the inclusion of some detailed asides, it's a great read, and at about 600 pages, will keep a reader engaged for a nice long time.
