Welcome aboard The Bus!
The Stop
Donna Tartt (1963- ) is an American writer and essayist primarily known for her three novels - The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013). Growing up as a ‘bookish child’ in Grenada, Mississippi, she published a sonnet at the age of thirteen and attended the University of Mississippi for a year. While there, her writing impressed Willie Morris,1 who in turn introduced her to Barry Hannah,2 who at the time was writer in residence at the university. Following these authors’ encouragement to seek ‘wider experience,’ Tartt transferred to Bennington College in Vermont, where she met other writers including Bret Easton Ellis, Jonathan Lethem and Jill Eisenstadt.3
Tartt’s debut novel, The Secret History, is set in a fictional Vermont college based closely on Bennington and is considered a classic example of an inverted murder mystery as the details of the murder are revealed in the opening pages of the book. The story of a close-knit group of Ancient Greek students who fall under the spell of a charismatic professor while searching for the authentic Bacchanalian experience, the novel - ‘steeped in evocative suspense and allusions to the ancient classics’ - stayed on The New York Times best-seller list for 13 weeks, a rare feat for a novel set on a university campus.4
Tartt’s follow-up, The Little Friend, was published ten years later. An eagerly anticipated work, the novel is set in the American South and recounts the efforts of a 12-year-old girl to avenge the unexplained death by hanging of her nine-year-old brother several years earlier. Described by Tartt as a ‘frightening, scary book about children coming into contact with the world of adults in a frightening way,’ the novel is known for some remarkably visceral set pieces,5 and in terms of ‘tone, setting, and plot,’ is ‘almost the antithesis’ of its predecessor.
Following her decade-to-write-a-novel pattern, Tartt’s next novel, The Goldfinch, appeared eleven years later. Titled after the small 1654 painting by the Dutch artist Carel Fabritius,6 the novel tells the story of 13-year-old Theo Decker who survives a terrorist attack at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art during which - in the heat of the moment - he steals the titular painting. Though it received mixed reviews on publication, the novel is considered a ‘significant addition to the literature of trauma and memory and a highly engaging meditation on the power of art.’ It also won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, with the jury hailing it as a ‘beautifully written coming-of-age novel … that stimulates the mind and touches the heart.’
Famous for time it takes her to write her novels, Tartt describes the first years of composition as a ‘torturous time’ she compares to ‘bring[ing] Frankenstein's monster to life.’ She writes in longhand, ‘making notes in red and blue pencil, stapling note cards to the pages and when the notebooks start to fall apart she prints out drafts, and each new draft is printed on a corresponding shade of paper.’ She also does not give talks, lectures, or interviews and will not appear at book festivals for the practical reason that she believes this is all ‘just distracting.’ In a world in which social media has made writers ‘wholly accessible,’ Donna Tartt remains mysterious - embodying Emerson’s belief that the ‘great freedom of American life [is] the freedom not to participate in the life of the culture, the freedom to shut the door, to close the curtains.’
The Detour
Today’s Detour is to ‘The Art of the Copyist’ (5:53), a short film interview with contemporary artist Jas Knight as he copies Diego Velázquez’s ‘Juan de Pareja’ (1650) in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The takeaway quote: ‘You haven't begun to see a painting until you've copied it .... Velázquez is on that canvas, so we're encountering a person's brain who doesn't exist anymore.’ Fascinating and worth the few minutes.
The Recommendation
Today’s Recommendation is Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch (2013), introduced in today’s Stop. It’s a great novel - one you can really get into - and one I thoroughly enjoyed on many levels. In fact, I’m going to have to read it again.
From the inside flap:
Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, miraculously survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is bewildered by his new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years he clings to the thing that most reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the criminal underworld.
As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph - a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.
The Sounds
Today’s playlist is composed of five tracks featuring strong women soloists. It’s one of my favourite since The Bus started its route a year ago - and there are some seriously powerful songs: ‘Precious’ (The Pretenders, 1979), ‘Dog Days are Over’ (Florence + The Machine, 2008), ‘Just Like Jesse James’ (Cher, 1989), ‘Someone Like You’ (Adele, 2011), and ‘Never Enough’ (Loren Allred, 2017).7
The Thought
Today’s Thought is from Donna Tartt’s The Secret History:
‘Sometimes when there's been an accident and reality is too sudden and strange to comprehend, the surreal will take over.’
If you have a thought on this Thought - or any part of today’s issue - please leave a comment below:
And that’s the end of this Stop - I hope you enjoyed the diversion!
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Until the next Stop …
Morris (1935-1999) is one of Mississippi’s best-known writers. For more information, see: Willie Morris.
Hannah (1942-2010) is the author of several ‘darkly comic, often violent novels and short stories set in the Deep South.’ One of his most famous collections - Airships (1978) - was suggested to me years ago by a friend, and after reading it I’ve never seen the short story the same way. For more information, see: Barry Hannah (Britannica).
Both Ellis and Lethem are highly-regarded, critically-acclaimed (and controversial) authors. Among other books, Ellis is the author of Less than Zero (1985), The Rules of Attraction (1987) and American Psycho (1991), and Lethem of Motherless Brooklyn (1999), Fortress of Solitude (2003) and Chronic City (2009). For more information, see: Brett Easton Ellis and Jonathan Lethem. Sources for today’s Stop include Donna Tartt (Independent) and Donna Tartt (Britannica).
One of my favourite novels, The Secret History was a recommendation in The Bus 1.42 (Orpheus). This issue is available to paid subscribers.
Including one scene involving a collection of rattlesnakes and copperheads that I will never forget.
Fabritius (1622-1654) was one of Rembrandt’s most promising students and died too young. For more information about him, see: Fabritrius (Britannica).
I think this is a great selection of tracks. I had a cassette of the Pretenders album almost permanently in my Walkman in 1987, and Florence + The Machine are outstanding. The Cher track is here because, well, Cher’s requisite in a list like this and thankfully this one isn’t overly naff. The Adele song is brilliant - a classic if there ever is one - and I thought ‘Never Enough’ (from ‘The Greatest Showman’) was the perfect ending. Now, if you know me, you know how much I loathe musicals (The Book of Mormon notwithstanding - that is BRILLIANT), but this song is … different. I just wish the orchestral bass was a bit heavier, but hey, that’s me.
I spent a few precious minutes this morning admiring a Goldfinch pair on one of my feeders. I am definitely adding today's recommendation to my reading list! I also really appreciate the Emerson belief you included - that is a nice freedom to have indeed.