Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt (born 23 December 1963) is an American novelist.

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23 December - 1963 - American

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Daughter of Don and Taylor Tartt, she was born in Greenwood, Mississippi but raised in Grenada, Mississippi. She started attending the University of Mississippi in 1981, before transferring to Bennington College in 1982. There she met writer Brett Easton Ellis who was also a student there. She graduated from Bennington in 1986.

Related Topics:
Greenwood, Mississippi - Grenada, Mississippi - University of Mississippi - Bennington College - Brett Easton Ellis

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Tartt began writing her first novel The Secret History on her second year at Bennington. It was Ellis who recommended her work to famous literary agent Amanda Urban, thus paving the way for the novel's great success. It was published in 1992 to great demand, even overwhelming a 75,000 book order for the first printing and becoming a best-seller.

Related Topics:
The Secret History - Amanda Urban

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The Secret History is set among a close-knit group of students and their professor of classics, and flavored heavily by the differences within the group as to social class and intellectuality. The narrator looks back years later on the circumstances that led to a murder within the group, implying this from the outset, but otherwise revealing the details sequentially; this unconventionally freights the polite and cerebral circumstances with an air of menace and corruption.

Related Topics:
Classics - Social class

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The Little Friend, Tartt's second novel, was published in October, 2002. It is, at least superficially, a mystery/adventure, told from the point of view of a young girl living in the American South in the mid-20th century; her implicit anxieties about the long-unexplained death of her brother and the dynamics of her extended family are a strong focus of the novel, as are portrayals of the life-styles and customs of a contrasting set of characters.

Related Topics:
The Little Friend - American South

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