On The Same Page; Donna Tartt

Welcome to On the Same Page. I'm Tommy Sanders. Ten years ago, Donna Tartt published her first novel, "The Secret History." It quickly became a huge critical and commercial success, and now her new novel comes along. It is called "The Little Friend." Donna Tartt is a native of Greenwood, Mississippi and her new novel is based in the fictional town of Alexandria, Mississippi, in the mid-1970s. Now a little later on in our show we'll assemble a panel of your fellow Arkansas book readers to talk about "The Little Friend," but first, Cain Webb of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette had a chance to sit down, talk with Donna Tartt in Memphis, Tennessee about her work and "The Little Friend." Let's watch. Donna Tartt, thank you for joining us here in Memphis at Burke's Bookstore. Your new book is "The Little Friend," and the book is filled with strong women, the strongest of which is a little 12 year old girl named Harriet Dufrane [spelling?]. Tell us a little bit about Harriet and, where did you find her? Where did she come from? Well Harriet is a 12 year old whose brother was murdered when she was

very small and the murder has really torn her family apart. And she's really raised herself by...via the public library. I mean, Robert Louis Stevenson and Sherlock Holmes are her models and her teachers. And when she's 12 years old she decides that the proper thing to do is to avenge her brother's death which is a very honorable thing to do. I mean that's very [antigany?] thing to do, but she's 12. And the people that she's fixed upon as her suspects are a family of car thieves, professional criminals, um, ex-convicts, some of the methamphetamine addicts that live across town. A rough bunch of people. She's not scared of them but anyone else would be. They're very frightening and sad and terrible group of people. "The Secret History," which was a huge success, commercially and critically was set in the Northeast.

You're from the South. Grew up in Grenada? Grenada or Granada? Greneda. Grenada, Mississippi Not, I I guess not too far from here. Not too far at all. And you've come back to the South for this second book. Why? Well, I think that most writers do return to their childhoods. I think that it's... it's...it's a natural...it's a natural movement for a writer. I can...I can think of very few writers who haven't, in some sense or other, returned to where they were born. This book is set in the 70s, uh, small Southern town, fictional town called Alexandria. You think of the 50s and the 60s as eras in which there was a great deal of change especially in the South with civil rights, uh, desegregation. But in the 70s there was also a lot going on it was kind of an end...end of certain eras and the beginning of others. Why the 70s and what was happening at that time that Harriet... Well the 70s were a very interesting time because the...the upheavals of the

60s had all happened. All those big explosions had gone off,. The violence was pretty much over in Mississippi and everyone was trying to figure out... Everything had changed but no one really knew what to do. And there was a whole new set of rules, uh, the rules that have been standing since before the Civil War were just toppled within a decade and some people were trying very hard to cling on to the old ways. Other people were just heading straight into the new ways. Technology came in, there was lots of industry coming in. Rock'n'roll, popular culture, drugs. They were, there all sorts of... The rest of the country was also encroaching on Mississippi, which had been very xenophobic for a long time and had kept everybody out. It's not a first person novel, but the story unfolds primarily through the eyes of the 12... 12 year old girl Harriet. Uh, you're in your 30s.

How difficult was it to go back and write as a 12 year old? It's hard to write from the point of view of a 12 year old. I think that I found it easier, though, because I...I've kept notebooks ever since I was a little kid and I still have a lot of them. And they give one a very, you know, clear picture into what... It's very easy for me to remember what it was like to be 12 years old. For some people it's not. But, um, I remember it very vividly. Did you have to go back to the South to refresh your memory? Oh no, I remember [laughs] it'sthere. No i don't have to refresh my memory. [laughter] The uh, your first book, you said you were surprised it was a commercial success. Why? Well, because I've been working on it for 10 years, I had no contract, I had no promise of a contract, I had no agent. There was no reason for me to expect it was a success would be a success.

You went to school with Bret Easton Ellis who wrote "Less Than Zero." Among other notable books. and he saw your manuscript. Well we worked on it together. He was, he was working on "Less Than Zero" and I was working on "The Secret History" when we were both at college. However, it took me, you, know another 10 years to finish my book. He had written three books by the time I had finished writing "The Secret History." God bless him. But he was instrumental in getting it published. He was instrumental in showing it to my, showing it to his agent who later became my agent. And also he was instrumental in just calling up and nagging me a bit, you know, saying: where is it? Why haven't you finished it? Much has been made about the fact that there's 10 years between these two books. Why so long? I'll ask the obvious, the redundant, to you: why did it take so long to write your second novel. It took exactly as long to write my first novel. It took ten years to write my first novel as well I don't know I guess it's indicative of something horrible [inaudible] but um [laughter] I

don't know I... I enjoy working at a... at a leisurely pace. I don't I don't enjoy rushing through things I feel very uncentered and ungrounded in a book if I have to, if I feel that I'm working too fast. I make a lot of mistakes. I much prefer to work at the detail level. I happiest when I'm writing and rewriting a sentence, when I'm really just focused in on [talking over each other] on the tiny part of it. That's when it's fun. And it's it's very strange. I happen to write big books. But I write them in a very small way in a very very minute way. And that's why it takes so long because I really am, you know, going, going along very slowly and every sentence is very important and... Mostly it's just work. I throw a lot of what I write away if it's if it if it doesn't. It can be a beautiful piece of writing and I can be very proud of it. But if it doesn't fit into the service of the whole book then out it

goes. Murder your darlings. It's exactly what Oscar Wilde said. I've had it you know pieces I've... Sometimes you don't know exactly what's wrong. You work and you polish something until it doesn't feel right and it doesn't feel right. The scene just doesn't feel right and you keep working on it until finally it's a beautiful scene. It's so beautiful you can improve upon it no more and then you realize that the problem is not the writing. The problem is that you've written it from the wrong perspective. You have the wrong character telling this; it should be seen from someone else's eyes. Out it goes. [Talking over each other]. ...several perspectives in this book. You get the young girl, you've got there the Ratliff clan which I guess you could describe as country sorry. [laughter] That's a way of putting it. And they are running a group of young brothers and a grandmother. Not all of them so young. Some of them are in their 40s. They're running a meth lab and up to no good and tell me a little bit about the Ratliff's. Where did they come from? Are they people you knew growing up or are they...

There are certainly people that one sees. I think that yeah that, you know, if you go to the Wal-Mart at a certain time of night you will... you'll catch a Ratliff You will. Say no more. Was it difficult to change perspectives like that? It was very difficult. Yes it was it was it was it was extremely hard. And the Ratliffs were a big leap for me that was that was very difficult to try to see things from, from this perspective which is... so alien. And... it's... it was. It was, it was very difficult. One of the most difficult parts of the book, because one wanted to make them really well-rounded figures. There's a comic aspect to them but there's also, you know, a sadness. But at the same time they're really frightening. They're bad guys and they're very paranoid and they don't understand really why their paranoia is kind of

echoing Harriet's. They don't understand where this child is coming from. This child is suddenly everywhere. And it's a bit mixed up with their drug paranoia and little accidents start to happen and who is it? is it someone we burned in a drug deal? These are men who have many enemies. Many... many people have reason to get even with them and so they're very shaken by these small mishaps that start happening. I think around they've all spent a little time in there. [Talking over each other] And I have even the preacher--even the preacher's done a little time, but he's he's given his life to Christ. But all that's behind him. But I thought Danny Ratliff who is who is among the country sorry, was one of the more sympathetic characters in the book. Would you agree with that. Well I'm... He's sympathetic to me. I feel sympathy for him. He can't help the catastrophe of his birth. He's been, you know, he's had no luck you no... Has been given no breaks in life. And actually though neither of them realize it, no one in the book

realizes it, but the reader, I hope, will realize it, that Danny and Harriet are actually very much alike in some ways. They don't see that. She didn't... The pursuer and the pursued. There is one point in the book rather later on in the book where she is shadowing him and he turns around and sees her and comes chasing after her. But later on she thinks of that strange moment when he caught her eye and it was as if he was the first person who had really seen her for a long time. Unlike her family, he saw her. He recognized her for what she was, a creature rather like himself. Harriet spends a lot of time talking about The Jungle Book, reading Treasure Island. What other books informed this novel for you. Well [interviewer: through Harriet], the journals of Robert Falcon Scott's expedition to the South Pole and actually Cherry Gerard's "The Worst Journey in the World," which is about that the same journey. Harriet in her way is on her own little polar

expedition. She's trying to use these as a template on her own very flawed life as a as a you know that that's where her ideals of action come from and and there's a rather uneasy fit between those ideals and the real world obviously. I thought this book was--beared no similarities to--bore no similarities to "The Secret History." Totally different book. Not just that in that one was said the South was at the north east one dealt with college age students. Here you go they're both about children who are much too influenced by what they were doing. [Talking over each other] Taking their reading matter far too seriously. Maybe. I suppose so. What are you--Can I ask this--you just got your latest book out. I'm going to ask: what are you doing now, what's next, or what are your plans for your next book? Or I say, or a short story whatever it may be.

Well I've been commissioned to write a--with several other authors a novella that I think Jeanette Winterson is doing it. I can't remember who else but it seemed like an appealing project to me to write and develop that's based on Greek myth of one's choice they're going to be a series of little books and I decided to do that. I thought it would be terrific fun. I actually also like the idea, after writing two big novels, to write something short. So that was also [inaudible] The myth that I've picked is Dedalus and Icarus. So that's what I'm writing. I've already started another novel too. You have? Mmhmm. So in another decade or so we're going to know everything. Maybe, maybe sooner. Did I read somewhere that you said, uh, first of all, which I agree with two books before 40 is pretty good. And I, I... [talking over each other] Well, to me it seems pretty good. about to hit 40. That's really not you but you also said you thought and I think you're quoting William Starr in that that he said, ah, said he had about five novels in him and I mean you think you may

have five. [Tartt]: He said when he was about my age that he thought that he might have about five books in him and that that was okay with him. And, that's okay with me, too. I certainly don't see myself at the end of my life with a list of, string of, 20 titles behind my name. I really, I don't think that's going to happen, really, unless, unless I have a complete personality change or hit myself on the head. [Webb]: I'm not sure your readers could stand it if you had one every, every year. It takes forever to... [Tartt]: I don't think I should ever see it. [Webb]: Disect every line of a Donna Tartt book. We were talking about this earlier though but your books are enormously popular. Your readers are devoted, um, and I asked you if it bothered you, sort of this kind of obsession for Tartt, Donna Tartt's work, and you said that, that... [Tartt]: My readers' are very respectful. My readers are so respectful of my privacy. My readers are, I have the best readers in the world. They, they don't

bother me at all, they're, they're interested in my books, which is what, which is exactly what one wants. [Webb]: Do you miss the South? [Tartt]: I do miss the South, but I talk to my mother on the phone every day, so I don't miss it too much [laughs]. [Webb]: She lives, she lives in Mississippi still? [Tartt]: She lives in Mississippi still, so I, I get to hear everything that's going on at, at home. It's not as if I've, I've completely severed all ties with the South. I still feel very attached to it in a lot of very important ways. [Webb]: Well, I still live in the South so I don't miss it, but I do Miss Harriet after having finished this book. I have I really, um, she's just kind of, uh, walking around in my mind a lot now. And I was hoping you could read a passage from your book, "The Little Friend," in which Harriet's friend, Healy, is describing her and how much he, he's obviously got a huge crush on her. Head over heels in 13, year, what is he 13, 11? [Tartt]: He's a little younger than her, you know. He's 11. He's 11. [Webb] A little younger. 11-year-old love. It's puppy love at its, at its strongest And, and, uh, if you don't mind? [Tartt]: Sure. [Webb]: Great. [Tartt]: There were plenty of girls at school prettier than Harriet and nicer,

but none of them were as smart or as brave. Sadly, he thought of her many gifts. She could forge handwriting, teacher handwriting, and compose adult sounding excuse notes like a pro. She could make bombs from vinegar and baking soda, mimic voices over the telephone. She loved to shoot fireworks. Unlike a lot of girls who wouldn't go near a string of firecrackers. She had got sent home in the second grade for tricking a boy into eating a spoonful of cayenne pepper. And two years ago she had started a panic by saying that the spooky old lunchroom in the school basement was a portal to hell. [Webb]: Wonderful thank you very much for your time. [Tartt]: Thank you. It's been a pleasure. [Webb]: And this wonderful book. [Tartt]: Thank you. [Sanders] That's Donna Tartt, the author of "The Little Friend" being interviewed by Cain Webb at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. In Memphis, you're watching "On the Same Page," and I'm Tommy Sanders and here we

are in Conway, that bookstore at Mountebank Place, the folks here, very gracious in allowing us into their beautiful space here and we've assembled our group of Arkansas readers to talk about "The Little Friend" and maybe about the interview there. Want to introduce you to those readers right now. First up is Mary Mulkey who is a music specialist with the Little Rock School District. Teaches K through 5, is it Mary? at Otter [Mary] Right. Yes. [Sanders] Creek Elementary School right there in Little Rock. Kyle Brazel, associate editor at the "Oxford American" magazine, which, uh, incidentally, was relaunched recently in Little Rock so it's sort of a two city magazine [laughs] now. They got the "Oxford" still in the name. Kyle is a reader and a writer as well. And speaking of readers and writers and interviewers, Kane Webb, whom we just saw in action there, the assistant editorial page editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Thank you all for being here today and we'll just take it around the horn first and ask you, Mary, what attracted you about this book, what made you want to read it, and when you started it, what made you want to continue with it? [Mary] Well, um, I, I love, uh, Southern, uh, novels. I love books about the South and of course this is one. Um,

I suppose the first sentence wanted me to keep going because, uh, she captures you right there in the beginning with a monumental event of a child's, uh, death. And, uh, from then on, uh, she introduces the characters and, and you just want to get into their lives. [Sanders] The prologue, very powerful part of the book, it's, [Mary] Very powerful part [Sanders] as it's said to be with her first book as well and Kane I know you've read both books. And what do you think about this, this this device of, of, uh, using a, a prologue, uh to, to really put the dirt out there, put the hook out there and get the reader involved just almost from page one. [Kane] I think it's pretty courageous. She, she would know where I, nobody writes a better prologue than Donna Tartt, um, and, uh, she kind of gives away things but then goes back and fills in the blanks. The reason I was attracted to this book is because the first one was so darn good. "The Secret History," which was, um, uh her debut novel 10 years earlier and was something of a, of a smash success critically and, and, uh, uh, uh was a popular success too, and I wanted to see what she could do in her 2nd book, and this one is just totally different, I think, from "The Secret

History." Kyle mentioned he thought it, it almost reads like two different authors. [Kyle] Different in style, different in viewpoint the way the story's told. [Sanders] Yeah, sure, and, and she, uh, she sets it in a different place. "The Secret History"'s in the Northeast, this is in the South. It's very challenging for a writer to try to do what she's done and she pulled it off really well. [Sanders] Kyle, I want to ask you the same question I asked Mary. What, what attracted you to the book and what kept you at it. It's a long book, 555 pages. [Kyle] Yeah, very, almost intimidating, but honestly I didn't succumb to the, uh, the PR of ?? book because, you know, on the cusp of its publication it was, you know, proclaimed in all these magazines as a big important book of the, of the season and so, honestly, I think that's pretty much the reason. I just didn't want to be left out, uh is why I started it, but why I kept going, [Sanders] Yeah, yeah [Kyle] well it was certainly because of the, um, how evocative the book is. I mean it creates a world and it's a world that you want to stay in and, and not leave, even when the book is over. And I could relate to it a lot, I mean, uh, these, this child growing up in this family of, of, you know, strong women, and I thought of my grandmother and her sisters and things like that, and so there were things I could relate to in the book that made me want to

keep going and, and see how they might be similar to my world and also different. I do appreciate that. [Sanders] A lot of critics, a lot of reviewers have noted that in the, in the timing, the pacing, the way events are swept along in parallel ways and merging, there is, uh, more than just a little bit of, of Charles Dickens and, and Leo Tolstoy and other 18th century, or excuse me, 19th century, authors in that. And, uh, she, the author herself, claims that her, her narrative style has a lot more roots in that than it does in 20th century books. Would you all agree with that? Did, did you see some of that as you read the book, Mary? [Mary] Yes. And the, and the fact that, um, that she would give away parts of the story later and you were a little bit off center there and then she would go in and fill in those parts and you'd see how it related to the other characters and what they were doing at the time, yeah. [Kyle] I'm not sure I saw a lot of Dickens, although now that you mention it, I'm gonna have to think about that one a [Sanders] Tale of Two Cities? [Kyle] little bit, you know. [Sanders] ?? [Mary] Yeah. [Kyle] But I think the main character, Harriet, who's this 12-year-old

just, uh, uh, uh, a 12 year old dynamo, really. She reminds me of a couple of characters. Charles Portis's Mattie Ross from "True Grit," [Sanders] "True Grit," yeah. [Kyle] and, uh Scout Finch from "To Kill a Mockingbird." Uh, those were, were terrific literary figures. I think she, she may, may, may not be an uh, original figure but she's certainly a very powerful figure and that's a lot of what I thought about when I was reading the book. [Sanders] Also the quirkiest, sort of most enigmatic person, and the one you're, you're most drawn to, I think. [Kyle] Right. I think maybe what you're responding to is, I mean, it's sort of anachronistic in that it, that it's, it's just plot driven. [Sanders] Absolutely. [Kyle] There's not, it's not challenging in terms of being convoluted or play, you know, playing with you isn't always like, [Sanders] Ambiguous and all ?? [Kyle] that. I mean it's, you know, it's, it's a pretty linear plot. I mean, it, it kind of shifts between perspectives, but, um, but that's what it is, it's kind of just a page turner and it's a kind of really [Sanders] Is that kind of a throwback, I mean you, when you read a lot of contemporary fiction you don't see as much of that. [Kyle] I think a little, right, a modern novel Ithink wants to challenge you a little bit more and it's almost conspicuous about it in an off-putting way. But this one, I think, is a pretty accessible book, but that's not, that's a good thing, uh,

I think. [Kane?] It's not a challenging read, but I think she challenged herself, as she mentioned in the interview, I mean, she had 3 or 4 different strands going on here at the same time with Ratliff's, with Harriet, with, uh, Harriet's family, and, and she kind of had to tie 'em all together, and, and so she had different viewpoints. But I think the reader never got lost, uh, and, and, uh, which made the book very successful, I thought. [Sanders] All right. I know, Mary, that you're, uh, uh, sort of a connoisseur, and you've said as much, of Southern literature. As a matter of fact, you said you grew up, your yard connected with Eudora Welty when you lived in Jackson. [Mary] Well, yes it did [laughs] and it is a connection. [Sanders] Well, now there's a connection right there. How do you define Southern literature? How do you qualify a person as being a good or bad quote unquote "Southern writer?" [Mary] Well, I think, uh, one thing about Southern literature is that it has to really define that particular time and place, and, um, that the, the time and the place becomes almost a character in the story itself, that this story and, it could not develop, could not happen at any

other time or any other place. Um, sometimes when I'm reading, uh, well, for instance Eudora Welty, I almost want to speak it instead of read it because you just hear those accents and, um, those voices, and it has to be in that particular place. Um, and I think in many ways she succeeded in doing that, um, perhaps not as much in the dialogue, but as in setting the scene in the feel umm of this child who's growing up in, in, um, in fact, I almost thought at the beginning of the book, she doesn't really tell you what the year is, and I almost [Sanders] Right. It is a while before you realize. [Mary] Yes, because I thought it was in the '50s, [Sanders] Really? [Mary] because it, at first, because I think that, uh, her experience, her family is stuck somewhere in the '50s [Sanders] Uh huh. [Mary] and it's not until you get to Hely's family and, you know, [Sanders] Right. [Mary] they're eating, uh, Coco Puffs and running around in cut-off shorts and [Sanders] ?? right. [Mary] then you think, oh wait. We're not in the 50s, you know, we're somewhere else. [Sanders] Like so many Southern writers, she, she

also, as you mentioned, portrays the sort of ruined, a little bit older monied families that are now sort of becoming dissolute, really well. I mean, that's her tradition of [Mary] Right. ?? part of. Yeah. [Sanders] Southern literature as well, if she carries on. [Mary] Yeah, ?? [Kyle?] I like that she chose the 70s because you don't see that a lot in Southern literature. It's almost always about the 50s or the early part of the 20th century. [Mary] Right. [Kyle or Kane?] And she did this sophisticated way, too. But it was not a time capsule of the '70s by any means. [Mary] No. [Kyle or Kane?] I mean, you can pick up sly references but do you, she didn't beat you over the head with it, which I appreciated. [Sanders] In the '70s, she has mentioned, I've noticed in her writings, that in Mississippi were the '60s, when the 60s and all the social changes hit the small towns in Mississippi, they got beaten up and thrown out of town. The 70s are when the dams broke and then all of that social change sort of flooded in, and as she mentioned in your interview there, uh, that it was a confusing time for a lot I mean especially for a kid. [Sanders?] In the book, I mean, you still see some of the civil rights, just in terms of the, I mean there are, you know, the demeaning way these women, you know, thoughtlessly treat their, the household help and things like that, which I think they're only starting to, to realize in the book, you know

started to question, yeah. [Mary] And I think that's another part of Southern literature that um, race/class dichotomy there where prejudice and, um, distrust co-exist, right, with really deep affection and love and it's kind of hard to balance that. But then, because chara- [Sanders] Character is one thing, I wish we had more time to talk about the characters in the book. The, uh, another Southern literature tradition is sort of a clan of, of outlaws and, I think, you know, taken back, I guess, to Huckleberry Finn's dad. The Ratliff clan is, do they seem to you folks a little bit over, [Kyle or Kane?] A little cliched. [Sanders] a little bit cliche, I mean snake-handling crank cookers that drive Trans Ams is a bit thick, don't you think? [Kane?] Yeah. Superficially they did, but I, um, and the men more so than the woman, the character I think that they called her Gum, [Sanders?] The grandmother, yeah. [Kane?] some sort of nickname. And I almost felt like Donna Tartt was a little bit in awe of her, I mean the way she wrote about her. She really came alive to me more than, the guys did seem a little bit, um. And one of my, other than, yeah, some of them, other than the [Kyle?] ??

[Kane?] Danny, I mean the character, how bright he was, he was pretty, you know, pretty rich and well [Sanders] Right. [Kane?] drawn. But I especi, the woman, I especially thought, I mean, I can just see that kind of woman and then know what she'd been through. [Kane] There's a fine line between being stereotyped and being wholly accurate and I think, I'm not sure, she may cross it on occasion, but for the most part I think she's got it pretty, pretty down pat. I love the comment she made about you. It's your type of people you might see late at night at Wal-Mart [laughs]. [Sanders] ?? Exactly right. [Kyle] You know, we laugh because I think a lot of us are familiar with these types. [Sanders] Sure, absolutely. One more thing I want to touch on very quickly. The, the critical support for this book. It wasn't as unanimous as it was for her first book, and I think anyone who reads that book, I think we'd all agree that she is such a talented writer, so gifted and so skilled that she may be held to a higher standard than a lot of writers, which may be one of the reasons she didn't get the great reviews she got on the first one. Would you all think that's possible? [Kyle] Yeah. I think that "The Secret History" was such a smash that it would have been almost impossible to, to not just top it, but just to reach that same point. Um,

I, I like the book better, but when I was reading it I thought, this isn't going to be nearly as popular as "The Secret History." It's a different kind of page turner. Southern novels aren't the type of thing that are going to fly off the shelves. That, it didn't really surprise me. I was a little surprised at some of the, the critical, um, uh, critical reviews I, I read about the about the novel. [Sanders] Well, this is the novel right here, "The Little Friend," by Donna Tartt. And we appreciate you all coming up and talking about it. It seems like we didn't even get into the things we wanted to get into. It's a short period of time. Mary Mulkey, thank you very much. Uh, Kane Webb, Kyle Brazel, appreciate it so much. Thank you for watching "On the Same Page." [music] Burke's Bookstore was founded in, um, 1875. My husband and I bought the store two years ago from uh, Harriet Beason, whom we worked for, and she retired. We are the third owners after the last Burkes. It was in the Burke family for a hundred years. We try to get in oddball things, off the wall things that you're not going to find anywhere else and mix it up with the brand new stuff that's just being published.