Review: The Little Friend by Donna Tartt

I was late to the party on being a Donna Tartt fan, having read "The Goldfinch" first before "The Little Friend." The first thought that came to mind when I finished this book is there are those that write, and then there are those that tell the world how it is done by breaking the mold and creating from a space of their own devil-may-care, permissive making. Donna Tartt's writing is nonnegotiable; it's in a league of its own, so I'll simply stand in admiration of her deft skills and comment on what I see as her writer's personality, if you will, with regard to this book: Donna Tartt is a died-in-the-wool Southerner. It pours from the crevices of every paragraph in her literary accuracy of Southern language, nuance, priority, and characterization. I've read many a Southern writer ( and am a Southerner myself) yet can not think of anyone who delves down to the nitty-gritty in quite the same manner. It is more than her awareness of Southern parlance, what she handles adroitly is the underbelly of Southern mentality. In this book, she tap-dances on themes of denial, emotional isolation, class separation and self-righteous arrogance all through the vehicle of character. She writes through the lens of a vantage point with such a brutal glare as to make me wince, yet she is accurate. I didn't feel the warm, fuzzy comfort of beauty in this book, I felt an edgy cynicism instead and willingly accepted the tone. Tartt takes a simple premise: young Harriet Dufresne, of Alexandria, Mississippi, lives beneath the weight of the unresolved murder of her brother and seeks to find answers to a tragedy of which no one will address. That is the story in a nutshell, yet Tartt coaxes mile upon mile of humanistic fodder that goes beyond a painstaking, five-senses experience; her writing is so panoramic she holds the reader captive in describing a walk around the block. I take my hat off to Donna Tartt and will simplify by saying this: Donna Tartt is such a master storyteller, whatever she's selling, I'll buy.

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