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The Little Friend
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The Little Friend
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The Little Friend
Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

The Little Friend

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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Currently unavailable

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About this audiobook

The hugely anticipated new novel by the author of The Secret History-a best-seller nationwide and around the world, and one of the most astonishing debuts in recent times-The Little Friend is even more transfixing and resonant.

In a small Mississippi town, Harriet Cleve Dusfresnes grows up in the shadow of her brother, who-when she was only a baby-was found hanging dead from a black-tupelo tree in their yard. His killer was never identified, nor has his family, in the years since, recovered from the tragedy.

For Harriet, who has grown up largely unsupervised, in a world of her own imagination, her brother is a link to a glorious past she has only heard stories about or glimpsed in photograph albums. Fiercely determined, precocious far beyond her twelve years, and steeped in the adventurous literature of Stevenson, Kipling, and Conan Doyle, she resolves, one summer, to solve the murder and exact her revenge. Harriet's sole ally in this quest, her friend Hely, is devoted to her, but what they soon encounter has nothing to do with child's play: it is dark, adult, and all too menacing.

A revelation of familial longing and sorrow, The Little Friend explores crime and punishment, as well as the hidden complications and consequences that hinder the pursuit of truth and justice. A novel of breathtaking ambition and power, it is rich in moral paradox, insights into human frailty, and storytelling brilliance.


From the Hardcover edition.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateOct 22, 2002
ISBN9780553714067
Unavailable
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Reviews for The Little Friend

Rating: 3.4214198305825243 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

1,648 ratings73 reviews

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  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I love books where childhood hits against the reality of the world and one's family.The author deftly weaves very common actions with a child's wonder. That wonder is a handy tool, a the heroine sails forth to cross boundaries in search of an awful truth. Excellent use of language, deft pacing, an all-around winner for me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This is an absolutely fabulous read which beams the reader to a hot 1970s summer in Mississippi and the dysfunctional Cleve family. After the murder- unsolved - of their young son, twelve years earlier, the parents have drifted apart. Father lives and works away; mother is absent, distracted - the care of her remaining two daughters falling mainly to the home help, Ida, and her own mother and aunts..elderly, formerly well-to-do southerners. Elder daughter Allison still seems traumatized by the past; and the younger child, Harriet, is on the cusp of adolescence, intelligent, challenging...and determined to spend her holidays finding her brother's killer...This is emphatically not to be read as a murder mystery- although expect some thrilling moments. Tartt does an amazing job at evoking the world of the child becoming an adult. And this is far from a world of gentility, magnolias and mansions, as the seamy side of Mississippi life figures large too, with the criminal Ratliff brothers and their cohorts; meth manufacture, mental illness, snake-handling clergymen...Other reviewers have commented on the novel's failure to tie up the loose ends and definitively answer the important question....but I don't think that makes it a failure as a story. Harriet is the protagonist; she acts, she sets events in motion, and in life there are not always clear cut answers.I don't think the cover does this book any favours- featuring a grotesque doll, the reader might imagine a Chucky type horror tale, whereas this is a highly literary, descriptive and classy work.One you'll never forget.
  • Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
    1/5
    I really enjoyed the beginning of this book, the main character, the story and the setting were all very compelling. It goes on for far too long though, and I got so frustrated when the book's big mystery was never resolved.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Six-word review: Wish I'd known plot wouldn't resolve.Extended review:Brilliant prose, exceptional characters, vivid setting, gripping scenes, complex plot: how can a story have so many virtues and yet leave me feeling so ill-served?I invested many hours in reading this 555-page novel, and it wasn't until I actually reached the last page that it dawned on me that the author was going to leave me in ignorance: not just about the plot's driving question but about thread after thread of subplot and secondary character.That's not what I expected after reading the author's other two novels, and it's not what I expected from the implicit promises of this one.It may be that that's life; but that's not a satisfying novel.I'm not going to cite passages or quote noteworthy excerpts or praise the themes and motifs and figurative language, although I might have. Instead I'm just going to walk away; but I am going to call back over my shoulder and say, "And besides, you don't know how to conjugate 'lay.'"
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This novel isn't for everyone, but those who enjoy modern Southern Gothic will like it. Set in a small Mississippi town in the 1970s, all of the gothic themes are in here--focusing on gloom, terror, and certain amount of confusion of good and evil; turning institutions like religion, education, and marriage on their head; showing the lies of society's rules and customs, and how the world is anything but an orderly and sensible place; demonstrating the corruption and hypocrisy of societies institutions; ripping apart common stereotypes.Or, to put things more concretely, in the words of novelist Pat Conroy: "My mother, Southern to the bone, once told me, 'All Southern literature can be summed up in these words: On the night the hogs ate Willie, Mama died when she heard what Daddy did to Sister.'"Those who need a pat and neatly-tied-up ending shouldn't read Tartt's book, or if they do will be disappointed. I couldn't put it down, mainly because I kept wanting to see where Tartt was going with this. I found myself getting lost in this thing and staying up late three nights in a row reading, which these days is very unusual for me. All I can say is, Tartt's writing cast a weird spell over me. Harriet Cleve Dusfrsnes--12 years old, fierce, bossy, and unsupervised by those who ought to care about what troubles her. One of her great aunts says to her that it's "awful" being a child--"at the mercy of other people."Tartt's third book, The Goldfinch is one of my favorite novels. This one isn't, but it certainly is memorable. Probably the highest praise I can give the book is that it makes me want to re-read my Flannery O'Connor.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    My least favorite of Tartt's three novels but still really liked it. I had expected it to be more of a detective story than a description of southern culture. But still, beautifully written. It has a couple of scenes that are among the most frightening I have ever read.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Harriet was just a precocious baby when her older brother, Robin, was found hanged on a tree while the family was preparing for Mother's Day lunch. His death was never explained and the family never fully recovered from the tragic event. Years later, Harriet is out to finally figure out what happened and she wants revenge. With her mischief-seeking friend, Hely, in tow, Harriet begins stalking a local family known throughout the town for their antisocial behavior and constant tangles with the law. As Harriet and Hely attempt to avoid getting sent to bible camp and/or shooed away by Harriet's meddling elderly relatives, they also attempt to escape the wrath of the vengeful family of criminals.This book took me over three weeks to read and I'm not sure it was worth the effort. The storyline is slow and not very interesting. While the pace picks up in the last 15% of the book, Robin's killer is never revealed, and even the title is never explained. In the beginning, I thought it had potential. I envisioned Harriet like a 1970's American version of Flavia de Luce (Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie). I was particularly disinterested in the actions of the criminal family, which got equal focus in the book. In all, I would not recommend this story. Definitely not as good as Donna Tartt's other two books: The Goldfinch and The Secret History.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    I just couldn't stick with this at all
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Okay. Maybe I should have read the reviews before attempting this. Everyone, whether they loved or hated it, describes the book as slow and descriptive. Which is fine. Except for audio books that you need to hold your attention. I couldn't listen to this for more than 5- 10 minutes at a time. I'm not going to give up on Tartt yet, I still want to read her other book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    It took me a long time to finish "The Little Friend"; although some parts could have been a little less detailed it was worth it. The book doesn't give you all the answers, but that's how life is. In some cases you will never know what really happened. At some times you really feel sorry for Harriet and you wonder where she finds the strength to carry on.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    An over thought, overwrought second novel. After the crisp and breathless pacing of The Secret History, the languor and longeurs of this book are a big disappointment. Tartt tries, and fails, to make up for the near total lack of incident with a surfeit of largely pointless description.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Tartt starts this novel in a very similar way to The Secret History, with a matter-of-fact reference to a murder. "For the rest of her life," it begins, "Charlotte Cleve would blame herself for her son's death because she had decided to have the Mother's Day dinner at six in the evening rather than noon, after church, which is when the Cleves usually had it."But this novel is not directly about a murder. It is about the effect that the murder has on the dead boy's family, and especially on his sister Harriet, who was less than a year old when he died, and is 12 when the novel begins. It is through Harriet's desire to come to terms with the past and find her brother's killer that Tartt paints her vision of family life in the American South.The whole book, the entire portrait of a troubled family and all its relationships, stems from the unsolved murder of one young boy.Because of Tartt's mastery of suspense, this book will grip most readers all the way through to its bitter end. But as you reach the last page, you may well feel a sense of relief. Although this is a large novel.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    This book contains some excellent writing, but doesn't quite it as an excellent book. The story is told from the perspective of 12 year old Harriet, whose elder brother died (was murdered?) some 11 years earlier. Harriet's quirky character is very well drawn, and her childish approach to problems and problem solving is true to life. Her family, the now poor descendants of a once wealthy southern US family, are also convincingly drawn. The bad guys, the drug dealing low-life Ratliffe family, are depicted with wonderfully excruciating candour - every hit of amphetamine, every bout of paranoia, every failure to take up an opportunity in life.But the book fall a little short in narrative structure. The prologue paints a nice picture of a family history that grows and changes by retelling at family functions, only for there to be no more family functions or retelling over the next 600 pages. The central issue in the plot, who killed the brother, is not resolved at the end of the tale. The character of a young Odum girl from one of the low-life families who appears to be trying to rise from the mire is introduced, the appears once or twice more, but is never developed.This is a good book that with a little more attention to plot development could have been a great book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This was an excellent book that propelled me into The secret history. Unfortunately, I read it a long time ago and did remember the details of the book but that I liked it enough to give it 4 starts.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    "The Little Friend" takes place in the heart of Faulkner country, but it's not Faulkner, and it doesn't aspire to the grand old man, either. Sure, some elements seem familiar: the Civil War (or, if you prefer, the War Between the States) still lingers, as do the effects of an unspeakable crime. Blacks and whites live cheek-by-jowl without much comprehending each other, and many characters seem to spend their days ruminating on the past. Still,Tartt forgoes Faulkner's flowing, sometimes oppressively sensuous prose for he own crisp, intricate, meticulously descriptive style. Tartt, whose body of work isn't particularly extensive, just might be the rarest of creatures: a perfectionist whose efforts pay off handsomely. "The Little Friend" is six hundred pages long, but every piece is in place; Tartt doesn't so much as waste a word or fudge a detail. You don't so much read her intricate, carefully crafted sentences as much as burrow through them, but reading her prose can be an immensely satisfying experience. Her literary world, set in Alexandria, Mississippi of the seventies, is completely imagined, and she isn't afraid to describe her characters head-on for pages at a time, a high-wire act few writers would have the confidence to attempt. Prospective readers should be warned, however, Tartt leaves a number of plot storylines frustratingly unresolved. I suspect, too, that she's a writer more concerned with sentences than with whole novels and more interested in providing an accurate picture of a certain time and place than with just wrapping up a good yarn. Harriet, the protagonist of "The Little Friend," will likely remind readers of the work of another Southern author: Harper Lee. And there is a lot of Scout Finch in her: she's a tomboy, precociously intelligent, and eager to understand the world of adults. Still, "The Little Friend" has little of the reassuring sense of home that, I suspect, brings so many readers back to "To Kill a Mockingbird." Harriet has been all but abandoned by her parents and is being raised by a collection of aging great-aunts. It's not enough parental guidance to get by on, since the world she lives in, caught someplace between rapidly disappearing Old South traditions and ascendent twentieth-century mass culture, is a place of real danger. I don't want to give too much away, although most readers will find Harriet memorable and sympathetic, I get the feeling that the "Little Friend" named in the title isn't so much a character but a characteristic that I can't remember seeing in Scout: a genuine capacity for evil. It seems that the literary South is still a perilous, haunted place.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    As always, lushly written and with some great hard-hearted venom-blooded gristle, but, in a way, THE LITTLE FRIEND isn't quite as streamlined as THE SECRET HISTORY, and - as a result - suffers a bit. When she's successful, Tartt can be absolutely wonderful: she has a beautiful, poetic ear for prose, and an artist's eye for detail; she's phenomenal at etching out the small gestures and tics of friendships and enmities; and, when she hits her groove, she builds the walls of a scene up and over your head, encasing you completely in her own tightly-controlled world. But here? Without the iron skeleton of a conventional thriller girding her prose, she dips into indulgence, and sometimes skids off her mark. Her gorgeous, decadent Southern-gothic prose can get a little purple and overripe, her meticulousness can clog the narrative's arteries, and, over all, the little cul-de-sacs and dips of her plot can seem, well, a little aimless. THE LITTLE FRIEND is hugely weighty, topping about 500 pages. And, frankly, not all those pages are necessary. Tartt's gilded the lily, and eh, you know. Shed a hundo or so pages, and you'd be in business, I figure.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Massively anticipated I am sure by everyone who enjoyed A Secret History. And it took such a long time to come along! The first few pages - well, until the character of Harriet was introduced, really - were pretty hard going. I had to read them several times just to work out what was going on. Perseverance paid off and I did get into it in the end, though I still got stuck from time to time and found myself having to re-read.Tartt is great at creating characters, she lays on layers and layers of information, and her prose is magical. The oily landlord is a hoot, and the aunts are well differentiated even if they add less than one would expect to the actual plot.Can the ending be forgiven? Not sure. It's not dissimilar to The Magus (which I thought was acceptable) and Cold Comfort Farm (which wasn't). All in all, if you like great writing it was worth the journey even if the destination disappoints. And the gag about the butterfly coccoon was absolutely priceless.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Like ' the secret history' , this is a story with a phenomenal story line, with a beautiful slow build-up of tension, to the point where everything comes together in the last pages of the book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Harriet is a twelve year old determined to avenge her brother Robin's death. Robin died when Harriet was a baby and the culprit has never been found. This is the only topic of the past not discussed by Harriet's grandmother and great aunts. This novel weaves together Harriet's adventures and that of the Ratliffe clan, a doddering grandmother and her grandsons: an evangelist Christian, two speed freaks and a retarded teenager. Harriet is strongly influenced by her romantic reading, The Jungle Book and Captain Scott's last voyage are often used by Harriet as reference points in her quest. Against the lush Mississippi backdrop Tartt explores how unresolved grief can destroy the bonds of family. The characters in this novel are multi-dimensional and contrast strongly with one another. Sometimes the rich, visual metaphors of this novel are as oppressive as the heat, snakes and foliage of Tartt's Mississippi.The little friend engaged my emotions, but it was not an easy engagement, the images that Tartt realised will stay in my thoughts for a long time.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    In a nutshell The Little Friend is about Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, a twelve-year-old girl who decides she simply must solve the mystery of who killed her nine-year-old brother when she was just an infant. All Harriet knows of the incident is that little Robin was found hung from a tree on Mother's Day and nobody knew why. During her attempts to solve the mystery Harriet and her sidekick Hely get themselves into troubles far more adult than their years. Larger Mississippi-southern issues such as poverty and prejudice encircle more complicated crimes such as deception, drugs, and death.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    A powerful story about a young girl trying to find out why her brother was murdered. As she probes her memory for clues, she tries to piece together what happened....with disastrous results.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    i had great expectations after reading "Secret history " which is Donna Tartt's first book ( i think ) but i' m disappointed. The beginning is great and story develops very well but that's it. After one point it seems that nothing is happening and you keep reading and reading. I like that the story is based on mystery but in second part of the book that mystery ( unresolved death of a young boy ) is mentioned very rarely and in the end nothing is resolved. It's written very good but storyplot could be better.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    The Little Friend doesn't seem to have attracted as much positive critical acclaim as Tartt's The Secret History, but it contains the same elements that made the latter a success: absorbing, vividly painted characters, a slow moving but tightly crafted plot, and archetypal timeless American settings. Harriet has been raised largely by her grandmother and great aunts while her mother gracefully slips into a drug induced haze brought on by the death of Harriet's brother when she was a baby. 12 years later, Harriet resolves to solve the mystery of his death, and becomes caught up in the small town criminal underworld of the deep south. Harriet does a good job of portraying Harriet's rather intense worldview, but I was more taken with the other characters, Harriet's grandmother and aunts, and the criminal dregs of Ratcliff family. I didn't feel Tartt's leisurely pacing in describing their thoughts and feelings fit well with the murder mystery story of Harriet's quest, and I suspect this may be one of the causes of other readers' dissatisfaction with the book: the slow plot makes the book hard going if you're not interested in the minor characters. The resolution is also a little ambiguous: I'm fairly sure I see what happened to Harriet's brother, but reading online it seems many readers disagree! There are also elements I don't quite understand - I really don't see the significance of Harriet's sister, for example.For me, The Little Friend is worth reading as a social commentary. The casual racism and petty-mindedness could make for a depressing read, but as with The Secret History somehow Tartt succeeds in leaving the reader uplifted.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book started off with great promise. A young nine-year old boy, found dead hanging from a tree. Trail going cold, and nobody being able to explain exactly what happened that day. Twelve years later, his sister aims to find out the truth.However, thats where it stays. And stays. And even by the end of the book, it hasn't really been resolved. The book is very well-written, and has some beautiful prose, and great descriptions, but it is also quite frustrating as it doesn't really go anywhere. Towards the end, the story picks up and gets a bit more exciting and thrilling, so it is worth reading, as long as you can resign yourself to never knowing the truth...
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    This wasn't what I thought it would be - I was expecting a murder mystery suspense but in fact it was more of a study of childhood and character with little plot to speak of. Nothing wrong with that as such - it was very well written and the characters were good, but lordy I found it depressing! And the ending was really unsatisfactory. Although I was caught up in it, it was not a happy reading experience.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Too long and I didn't get it.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Strange book. Almost boring. 'When will something happen?!'Very disappointed. Finished it, but don't ask me how long it took me.
  • Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
    2/5
    Same problem as Paint it black - too many words, not enough story. I didn't enjoy it, although it is well written, the story ends abruptly. Left me dissatisfied.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I'm not sure what to say about this one . . . part mystery, part horror story, part southern gothic . . . don't judge the book by its cover, though, the cover picture is terrible.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    In itself I suppose this book held its own, but having read it after Secret History I was bitterly disappointed. It had nothing of the complex characterisation I was expecting.