I'll have a donna' and chips, please...
She's so tiny it's terrifying. This, combined with the pale skin, excessively straightened dark bob and jagged black suit, manages to make Donna Tartt seem simultaneously vulnerable and brittle. Everything about the author's physical appearance complements the media myth that she is a recluse, shy but also prickly, who hides away not only because she is scared of public scrutiny, but because she just doesn't want to talk.
But then she does talk. And her bold, mellifluous southern drawl fill the Oxford Union debating chamber. The tones which emanate from her tiny figure are so assured that you feel the need to follow her lips in order to ensure that it really is Tartt who is speaking. Contrary to everything ever written about her as well as the image conveyed by her stern photographic poses, Tartt is flawlessly self-assured. The voice oozes confidence, and when questioned she replies with animation and at length.
The first item on the agenda is inevitably the many differences between Tartt's new novel The Little Friend, and her one previous book, the 1992 bestseller The Secret History. Whilst both books centre around a murder, The Secret History famously followed one clique of students at a new England college, whilst The Little Friend follows different generations of a family in the Deep South of the 1970s, and is easily the more complex work. Tartt does not discuss this directly, however, instead employing in speech a faint echo of the linguistic skill which she uses to devastating effect on the page: "[The Secret History] ia a concerto for a solo instrument, whereas this is a symphonic work... a different kind of novel".
The author becomes further animated when discussing the process of writing, it having been widely documented that her ten year absence was not due to writer's block, but sheer perfectionism. Tartt again employs metaphor to describe the process, comparing it to maths: "There were times when I thought that I'd set myself a problem which was insoluble... but amazingly I was able to work through these problems." She tells us that it was sheer discipline which allowed the book to be written, sitting at her desk for up to eight hours a day for ten years. Tartt is a tutor's dream, demonstrating that success comes only through perseverance: "I felt compelled to sit there. It's not going to happen unless I sit through it. When it comes, even if it's not when you're sitting at the desk, it's because you sat there."
Tartt surprises when she begins to talk about the social themes of The Little Friend, despite having consistently stated that it is the technique of writing which drives her forward, not the context. She gives an rare insight into her background with the comment: "the 1970s were a time of unmistakable change in the South... Everyone was trying to figure out what to do. Children, old people, black people, white people. The old rules of respect no longer applied."
A slight sense of contrariness is revealed, when, faced with a friendly question as to whether her characters are based on real people, Tartt replies: "It's sweet and touching that people think the characters are based on real people. It's a real compliment to me", pause, "but I made it up." She makes the point that: "If I drew from real life, it would really be very dull". But ultimately I cannot help feeling that this ducks the issue somewhat - whilst clearly Tartt did not murder anyone whilst at College, she was part of a 'Greek clique' similar to the students in The Secret History, and grew up in the deep south of The Little Friend. Her work clearly reflects her life, so it should be fair to ask about the inspiration behind her characters.
And after this statement she stops talking. No more questions. No chance to ask about the things which we, the tabloid generation, really want to know, and which she knows that we want to know. No chance to ask about the darkness at the heart of both of her novels, and yes, no chance to ask about her famously secret social life.
In the brief time available, Tartt gives interesting answers to every question but still manages to maintain an element of mystery around her own persona. Whilst the author emerges from the small frame to submerge the room, the woman remains entirely unknown. But then maybe that's a good thing - after all, Tartt's writing speaks for itself.
Donna Tartt's new novel is as intriguing as her first ten years ago and this makes a comparison with The Secret History inevitable. A shift has however occurred in Tartt's approach to writing: while her imagination is as vivid as before, perhaps some of the exuberance has been dispelled. This is a stately novel, broad in its scope and more ambitious in its devices.
It centres on the Cleve family and the repercussions endured by all following the suspicious death of Robin, a nine year old boy who in dying young, in suspicious circumstances, is transformed into a 'radiant but oddly featureless' figure in family folklore.
As a teenager, his younger sister Harriet becomes consumed with a need to discover the details of her brother's demise and it is the consequences of her desire for revenge which occupy the bulk of the novel. However, what makes the novel a success is not the events surrounding this quest: more interesting for the reader are the depictions of family life and its tensions in addition to observations on life in the American South in the 1970s.
We observe the concurrence of ingrained racist values amongst the older generations and the gradual change of attitudes among the young. Seen once again is Tartt's preoccupation with those preoccupied with death, highlighted in Harriet's eerily insistent reconstructions of the crucifixion accompanied by the other 'disciples'.
The tempered pace of narrative which so distinguishes The Little Friend from The Secret History makes it hard to categorise the novel as a straightforward whodunit; Tartt has enlarged her palate in terms of subject matter and with this broader spectrum of interest and concern, elements apart from narrative drive are foregrounded. Tartt purposely moved out of cloistered academia and into the wide world with her choice of subject matter and thus the characters to whom we are introduced are more diverse.
They are nevertheless identifiably Tarttian in the bizarre otherworldliness which is so distinct in both of her novels. Once informed that it is not a page turner, the tome-like size of The Little Friend can perhaps seem off-putting, yet while much has changed from the days of The Secret History, those who liked that will surely get a lot out of this.
The wry sense of humour remains and the investigation of the uncanny quality of existence for anyone not quite an adult leaves the reader just as discomfited with regard to the potential in everyone for delinquency as was felt by anyone reading The Secret History ten years ago.
7th Nov 2002