Product Description

Although the Cleves generally revelled in every detail of their family history, the events of 'the terrible Mother's Day' were never, ever discussed. On that day, nine-year-old Robin Cleves, was found hanging by the neck from a rope slung over a black-tupelo tree in his own garden. Twelve years later, the mystery - with its taunting traces of foul play - was no nearer a solution than it had been on the day it happened.This isn't good enough for Robin's youngest sister Harriet. Only a baby when the tragedy occurred, but now twelve years old, Harriet is ready and eager to find and punish her brother's killer. Her closest friend Hely - who would try anything to make Harriet love him - has sworn allegiance to her call for revenge. But the world these plucky twelve-year-olds are to encounter is not child's play: it is dark, adult and all too menacing. In Donna Tartt's Mississippi, the sense of place and sense of the past mingle with rich human drama to create a powerful alchemy. Here a child's inquiring mind not only unearths telling family artefacts, but stirs up a neighbourhood nest of vipers and larceny. THE LITTLE FRIEND is a profoundly involving novel which demonstrates how the imaginary life embraces what literature we read, what special places we inhabit and what kindred souls we recognize, to help crack open even the darkest secrets life has hiding for us.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #84224 in Books
• Published on: 2003-10-06
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 576 pages

The Times
'Harriet is one of the most engaging and rounded characters you are likely to find ... gorgeous, fluent, visual'

Daily Mirror
'Beautifully written and immaculately crafted ... even though there's humour, the tension is palpable. Unputdownable'

Daily Mail
'A dazzling tour de force'

Customer Reviews

Disappointing follow up novel
As much as I'd love to praise Donna Tartt for her follow up to the excellent 'Secret History', I have to agree more with the other disappointed reviewers on here. Despite the fantastic first hundred pages or so, and the intriguing central character, Harriet, you can't help but feel let down by the time you finish.

I got distracted easily whilst reading 'The Little Friend' - there was nothing to hold the imagination and grab you by the throat like the compelling plot of the 'Secret History'. The plot just kind of meanders like the Mississippi, and ends with more of a damp fizz than the stunning fireworks of her debut novel. Having said this, Donna Tartt has created an intriguing cast of Southern misfits and religious fanatics, but these unfortunately cannot save you from the feeling of disappointment than ultimately hits you.

Gripping narrative, superb writing
Harriet is haunted by the childhood death of her brother Robin and vows to find and punish the murderer. Set in a Mississippi summer - you can feel the heat and dust. The maid Ida Rhew suggests perpetrator is local "white trash" Danny Ratcliffe and Harriet begins to follow him and his brothers. Danny and his elder brother are drug dealers and another brother Eugene is a trainee preacher, hoping to learn to use poisonous snakes in his sermons.

There is a whole range of weird and wonderful characters - some could be straight out of a Coen brothers' film.

Racism of the time is dealt with with subtlety (dismissal of Ida Rhew, sacking of Hely's housekeeper, failure to tell Libby's maid that Libby had died)

Gripping narrative, superb writing and great characterisations. I loved The Secret History, but think this is a better book.


I first got to know this book as an audiobook. It was beautifully read and great to listen to.

please get an editor
This book is really frustrating. The first hundred pages are brilliant - you get a main character who is completely unique, funny and intriguing placed in a community with a terrible history. At page 100 you're mouth is watering at the prospect of how Harriet powered by her imagination is going to unravel the mystery and in the process cause an outpouring of chaos and disorder in the town.

Then instead of maybe another couple of hundred pages of drama and powerful conclusion 'The Little Friend' turns into a big rambling bore of a novel - where you actually begin counting the pages and feeling pleased you got through another half-inch of it.

I am sure the purpose of the middle section is to deepen the characters and the sense of place but many of these long passages are simply repetitions of other character/place development passages. I always thought brevity was a virtue and repetition a vice of literature and I'm sure Tartt's main aim here in writing this section was to write something 'long'. It's terrible to see her sacrifice all of the suspense and intrigue she has created initially but this is what she does.

It reminded me of the film 'The Graduate' where the director plays the 'Strawberry Fayre' tune over and over again until you actually feel as irritated as Hoffman's character. Is Tartt trying to irritate us too?

I always wonder if these 'hype' books get away with so much bad editing because of the writers ego or maybe because the 'hypers' haven't read anything better. In which case for a dramatic and evocative vision of the south I recommend Flannery O'Connor's 'The Violent Bear it away' Daniel Woodrell's 'The Ones You Do' and Joe R Lansdale's 'The Bottoms'.