Preachers and sunshine and snakes, oh my! (The Little Friend - Donna Tartt)

Member Name: Kateydid

Product:	The Little Friend - Donna Tartt
Date:	29/10/03 (93 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's brilliant

Disadvantages: I read it too quickly, and now it's over!

I spent about an hour yesterday writing a review of this book... and then promptly lost it when I tried to post it. Why? Because I chose to ignore the nice, red, visible, and as it turns out, eminently sensible advice placed conveniently above the text box, and did not either type my review elsewhere, nor save a copy before posting... But is is a testament to how much I loved this book that I am determined to try again - and again and again, if need be - until I have shared with the world how great this book is, and convinced you all to go out and buy your own copy. (Actually, if I'm honest, I also want to convince people to buy it because I got a cut price copy in Tesco, and feel that I am cheating Donna Tartt of her rightful earnings if I don't at least persuade someone who might not otherwise have bought the book to do so... it's a balance thing. I like balance.)

To begin at the beginning - well, sort of. I was wandering through Tesco a fortnight ago, and could not help but notice a stand of books, all priced at an amazing £3.73. I was stunned and delighted, because if I have one weakness when it comes to impulse buying, it's books - and books are expensive. If I was offered a thousand pounds to spend in one go in any one shop of my choice, it would probably have to be a bookshop. It would definitely have to be a bookshop. AND I'd have problems cutting the list down to the £1000 mark. (I would.) But on this day, despite the amazing prices, I had literally a tenner to my name, and no food in the house, and so I regretfully bypassed the aisle, knowing that if I were to go within ten feet of the books, I would convince myself that I could live on rice and lentils for a week, as long as I had something to read.

However, a week later, my beloved father had transferred money to my account (I'm a student, not a sponge, incidentally) and I felt I could more than justify such a minimal expenditure. Amongst the other bo

oks on sale, I spotted 'The Little Friend' by Donna Tartt. Having just a couple of months ago re-read 'The Secret History', I had been thinking about buying 'The Little Friend' but had been dubious, because I felt I couldn't like it as much as I had 'The Secret History' (henceforth TSH) and also because i had read some lukewarm reviews of it, comparing it disfavourably to TSH. (Including one in the Economist, which I usually trust, but howandever...) How wrong could I have been!! TSH was great - gripping, enthralling, absorbing, however you want to describe it, I just couldn't put it down. 'The Little Friend' (henceforth TLF) was all that but also beautiful, moving, and so incredibly well-written and observed.

I won't get into the details of the events of the story - firstly because I hate spoilers, but also because if you think that what the book is about is what events are described, you're horribly mistaken. Suffice it to say that Harriet Cleve Dufresnes is 12 years old - almost 13 - and facing into a long, hot summer, twelve years after the murder of her older brother. Her mission for the summer - and she's a child who likes to have a mission - is to find out who killed him, and avenge his death. (Ambitious, no?) Along the way she begins to truly grow up - and learns some hard lessons about truth and reality.

That's all you're getting on the plot front. But read this book - not for the plot, much though I liked it, but for the characters and for the ambience. Read it for the crazy snake-handling preacher, the crotchety stern grandmother (and the racist bigoted miniature other grandmother) the wispy transparent grieving mother, the oppressive heat of the summer which you can feel all the way through the book, making things feel unreal and lending many of the events - those that take place outdoors, anyway - a hallucinatory feel. Read this book for the brilliant wa
y it captures the fragility of childhood friendships, the fragility of all relationships, I suppose. Read it for the sheer diversity of the people you get to meet and temporarily live cheek by jowl with - there's hardly an unambiguous character in the book, and that alone is a feat. Who writes a book entirely populated by three dimensional characters?

Just read it. Please? (And preferably buy it full price, and if possible from an independent bookshop. I still feel guilty about buying it from Tesco!)

P.S. I'm knocking off one star, because brilliant though it is, it's still not quite as good as my favourite book of all time, and also because I hate to go around calling things perfect. But that's all.

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