From the Bookshelf of Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge…

The cover blurb makes it sound like Julian (the Classics professor in question) plays a larger role than he ultimately does in the group’s transformation. I didn’t particularly latch on to Julian; he’s a side character here at best. Our narrator, Richard, tells us from page one that Bunny (one member of the group) is dead, because he and the others killed him. The mystery lies in piecing together the events that led up to the murder, as well as its motivation. Richard is an outsider to the group - he arrives at Hampden College his junior year, and because he apparently has an ear for dead languages, decides to study Greek. But the Classics program is headed up by the eccentric Julian, who only accepts a tiny number of students (five, currently), and basically controls their entire schedules. It seems odd, and again, I didn’t learn enough about Julian to totally buy into his myth. I guess he’s just supposed to be so charismatic and mysterious that everyone wants to be part of his inner circle? I just didn’t see it. There’s a lot told, but not much shown, where Julian is concerned, because the core five in the group have already had their formative experiences with him. I feel like Richard is drawn more toward the group, and the idea that group represents, than Julian.

Richard is basically your typical Everyman outsider guy. He wants desperately to belong, and this exclusive little club seems like the perfect place for him. In spite of the fact that I wasn’t terribly drawn to Julian, I did find the other characters fascinating in a trainwreck sort of way. There really isn’t a likable character to be found here -- Richard’s a spineless weenie, and everyone else is a hot mess (although I confess I had a terribly hard time remembering that Francis and Charles were two different people. They read as interchangeable). Bunny is probably the most normal of them all, in the end.

It transpires that the reason for Bunny’s murder is rooted in another murder. Apparently the core Classics kids (Francis, Charles, Camilla, and Henry) decide to have a bacchanal? Having read a bunch of Greco-Roman shit, they apparently thought it sounded like a good idea. But Bunny would never take the damn thing seriously, so one night the other 4 went off to the country without him and...did the thing. But when they came back to themselves, they realized they had killed a farmer. Like, ripped him apart, steaming entrails, that sort of loveliness. They left the body, and when Bunny found them bloody, tried to tell him they’d hit a deer. And although authorities find the farmer’s body, no one traces it to the four students, since he was found so far away from the country house. Somehow (I forget the impetus), Bunny figures out they had the bacchanal without him and that it was the true cause of the farmer’s death. So he sets about being a real ass and basically blackmailing everyone into doing his bidding. Henry actually takes him on a trip to Italy over Christmas break to shut him up, and Bunny spends most of the trip burning through Henry’s money as fast as he can. Henry leaves him there and comes back early, which is convenient because he can rescue Richard from the world’s worst living situation. It’s an attic with a hole in the roof. In the winter. In Vermont. Where the campus closes for January and February on account of it’s so damn cold.

So Henry takes Richard in, tells him about the first murder and Bunny’s blackmail. What Richard doesn’t realize at the time is that Henry’s setting him up to be the patsy. Henry’s been planning Bunny’s death for far longer than he lets on (he does a bunch of experiments with poisoned mushrooms before deciding to go with death-by-ravine), and just in case anyone traces it back to the group, the group needs a fall guy. Henry claims that Richard is basically the canary in the coal mine; once Bunny confides in Richard about the farmer, they’ll know he’s decided it’s more advantageous to tell people than continue with blackmail, and the murder plot can commence. It seems like the safest course of action would be to keep Richard completely in the dark, so the fact that Henry just decides to tell him is suspect. Anyway, Bunny blabs to Richard, who in turn blabs to Henry, Bunny goes over the ravine and that’s that.

The rest of the novel (a little less than half, maybe) comprises the “punishment” part of the story. I remember reading C&P in high school and lamenting that so much time is spent on the punishment, relative to the crime. Adult me stands by that statement, however in Tartt’s case, the “punishment” section is far more interesting than whatever happens to Raskolnikov (I think I made it to page 200 before I gave up). See, it snows the night of Bunny’s murder, which covers up his body and turns a murder case into a missing person case. Then there’s Bunny’s old prep school friend Cloke getting paranoid that it has something to do with the drugs he’s been dealing to Bunny and co (weed, coke, meth, you know the usual). The group have to watch the manhunt for Bunny, participating in it even though they know everyone is looking the wrong place, deal with Bunny’s family, attend his eventual funeral...it eats away at them all in different ways. And although Richard is our narrator, it’s fascinating to watch him watch everyone else fall apart. Eventually, he (and the reader) come to the conclusion that Bunny’s murder was less about getting rid of their blackmailer and more about just seeing if they could get away with it. For Henry anyway. I actually thought he was going to turn out to have murdered Julian too, once he disappeared.

Ultimately, I really loved this book. It took me an entire week to read, which is slow for me, even when I’m not reading YA. The writing was so great and the characters so fascinating that I would immediately put the book down if I realized I was starting to skim (although I confess I did skim some of the Greek stuff at the beginning, back when they actually went to class). This is an almost perfect example of a book that is enjoyable despite not featuring one single likable character.