The Little Friend - (Vintage Contemporaries) by Donna Tartt (Paperback)

About the Book

The hugely anticipated new novel by the author of "The Secret History" is "an elegant, edifying work of art" ("Entertainment Weekly"). Even more transfixingly suspenseful than its predecessor, this is a dark work of lost childhood, rich in moral paradox, as a 12-year-old Mississippi girl sets out to find her brother's murderer.

Book Synopsis

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. - "Destined to become a special kind of classic." --The New York Times Book Review

The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother's Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents' yard. Twelve years later Robin's murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin's sister Harriet--unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town's rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family's history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and "a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens" (The New York Times Book Review), The Little Friend is a work of myriad enchantments by a writer of prodigious talent.

Review Quotes

"The Little Friend seems destined to become a special kind of classic.... It grips you like a fairy tale, but denies you the consoling assurance that it's all just make-believe." --The New York Times Book Review

"At times humorous, at times heartbreaking, The Little Friend is most surprising when it is edge of the seat scary." --USA Today

"Harriet [is] one of the most engaging and rounded characters you are likely to find.... Tartt's writing: gorgeous, fluent, visual." --The Times (London)

"Languidly atmospheric ... psychologically acute.... A rich novel that takes you somewhere worth going." --The New Yorker

"A terrific story.... Tartt etches each of these characters with indelible assurance." --Newsweek

"Breathtaking ... A sublime tale rich in religious overtones, moral ambiguities, and violent, poetic acts ... From its darkly enticing opening, we are held spellbound." --Elle

"A sprawling story of vengeance, told in a rich, controlled voice ... Tartt has written a grownup book that captures the dark, Lord of the Flies side of childhood and classic children's literature."
--Time

About the Author

DONNA TARTT won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for her most recent Novel. The Goldfinch Her novels The Secret History and The Little Friend were also international bestsellers. She was born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and is a graduate of Bennington College.