Finished Mo 4/9/18
The reason that I ordered this paperback from Amazon was I saw a podcast with Greg Iles and he said the Donna Tartt was his favorite Mississippi writer. After finishing book, I ordered another by Tartt.
Hampden College, Vermont (fictional college and city)
The plot-line revolves around six friends that are attending college and majoring in a special program studying classical Greek- philology, anthropology, and sociology.
John Richard Paypen- the protagonist, He's the 'outsider' because he doesn't have any money or social standing. He's from a small town in California and his father runs a gas station...."We're in oil".
Charles and Camilla Macaulay- twins that may or may not be sexually involved, but they are smart and intuitive.
Francis Abernathy- He is from a very wealthy family. The family told him that his grandmother was his mother, but his sister is actually his mother. He and his real mother were raised at fancy schools and treated almost as siblings. His family owns a huge mansion that the friends use that's not too far from the college.
Henry Winter- Very smart and ominous fellow- super intelligent and wily (possibly evil). He's the brains of the outfit.
Edmund 'Bunny' Corcoran- 'The loose canon'. He is killed (pushed off a ravine on the local college hiking path) because he threatens to expose the group for the murder of the farmer.
Professor Julian Morrow- He's running a special Greek program at Hampden. He pretty much is not controlled by the administration whatsoever.
The five friends (without Rich or Bunny) recreate a Dionysian orgy/ religious observance and a local farmer is killed. The actual details of the murder and how it occurred is never really addressed.
The whole book is a 'cover-up' of this crime and Bunny is killed because he might expose the group.
Bunny, Francis, Charles, and Richard are heavy drinkers. And this adds to the possible leaking of the facts of their notorious adventures.
The plot from wikipedia-
"As the story opens, Richard leaves the (fictitious) small town of Plano, California, where he is generally unhappy, for (the fictitious) Hampden College in Vermont. His disdain for his background establishes a contrast—aestheticism and literary beauty, as opposed to harsh reality—that continues throughout the novel. He misleads others about his background, replacing his mediocre working-class childhood with a fabricated, glamorous one of boarding schools, wealth, failed actors, and parents who own an oil well.
In Vermont, Richard tries to continue his study of Ancient Greek, only to be denied admittance to the course, as Classics professor Julian Morrow limits his enrollment to a tiny hand-picked coterie. Richard becomes obsessed with the group, observing them around campus and noting what he considers a cold attitude toward the world around them and an obsession with studies that he admires. Eventually, he manages to ingratiate himself with the group by helping to solve a Greek grammar problem. Soon after, armed with advice from the group on how to impress Morrow, Richard meets with him and is finally admitted to the Classics tutorial.
The group includes fraternal twins Charles and Camilla Macaulay, who are charming but secretive, as well as Francis Abernathy, whose secluded country home becomes a sanctuary for the group. (Francis reappears, in a sentence or two, in Tartt's later novel, The Goldfinch.) Two students become the central focus: linguistic genius Henry Winter, an intellectual with a passion for the Pali canon, Homer, and Plato; and back-slapping Bunny Corcoran, a bigoted jokester more comfortable reading Sax Rohmer's Fu Manchu novels.
The pair's friendship, which Richard finds odd, becomes more mystifying when Bunny announces that he and Henry will spend winter break together in Rome, Italy—although Henry appears to barely tolerate Bunny, and Bunny cannot afford such a lavish holiday himself. In fact, Henry is footing the bill for the trip. To avoid revealing his fabricated past, Richard takes a low-paying job on campus and spends winter break, the coldest in a generation, in an unheated warehouse. He nearly dies from hypothermia and pneumonia, but is rescued and taken to the hospital by Henry, who has returned early from Italy.
After winter break, Richard sees the relationship between the others and Bunny becoming even more strained. Ultimately, he learns the truth from Henry and Francis: during a Bacchanal (from which both Richard and Bunny were excluded), Henry inadvertently killed a local farmer who lived near Francis's country estate; Richard questions Henry pertaining to the nature of their Bacchanal, which he understands to be a sex ritual, and Henry confirms this but refuses to elaborate. Bunny, suspicious for some time, uncovered the truth about the group's accident during the trip to Italy by reading Henry's diary, and has been blackmailing the group since. The group, led by Henry, now view Bunny as a danger, and Bunny's penchant for playing on his friends' fears and insecurities does little to assuage their concern.
No longer able to meet Bunny's demands, and fearing that he will report them, the group resolves to kill Bunny. Henry forms several plots, one of which is finally put into motion after a drunken Bunny tells Richard of the killing. The group confronts Bunny while he is hiking, and Henry pushes him into a ravine to his death.
The rest of the novel follows the group's collapse, the psychological strains of remorse borne by the members, and their efforts to maintain secrecy as investigators and other students inquire into Bunny's disappearance. (The other students include loquacious drug user Judy Poovey, a reader of "those paranoia books by Philip K. Dick".) They attempt to act natural, joining the search parties combing over the campus looking for Bunny.
Charles develops a drinking problem and becomes increasingly abusive towards his sister Camilla. Francis confirms to Richard that the twins are having sexual relations, at the same time admitting he has also slept with Charles on a number of occasions that Charles is in the mood. Francis himself begins to suffer panic attacks. Morrow discovers a pleading letter sent to him by Bunny, imploring him to help: "You're the only one who can." He never reports the crime, instead leaving the faculty. This action creates consequences for the main characters (though mainly just Richard, the only one without an inheritance at his disposal). Left without a teacher, they have little options for the coming academic year and will be unable to complete their majors, forced to change up their plans, though this is hardly the most troublesome thing on their minds.
As the group splinters, the members must deal with things in isolation. Henry begins living and likely sleeping with Camilla, which drives Charles further into alcoholism. Henry, deeply upset by Morrow's departure, sees it as an act of cowardice and hypocrisy. When Charles is arrested in a drunk driving incident with Henry's car, Henry fears Charles will let something slip to the police. The climax comes when Charles, jealous of Henry and now a full-blown alcoholic, barges into Camilla and Henry's hotel room and tries to kill Henry with Francis' Beretta. In the struggle, Henry gets hold of the gun; the others pile on him, and Charles ends up shooting Richard in the abdomen. The innkeeper, hearing the commotion and gunshot, forces his way into the room. Before anything else can happen, Henry calmly kisses Camilla farewell and shoots himself fatally. Apparently, Henry, wishing to uphold the principles he feels Morrow, whom he "loved more than anyone," has betrayed, covers for Charles, his suicide leading the police to conclude that Henry shot Richard.
With Henry's death, the group disintegrates. Francis attempts suicide and, though homosexual, is forced by his rich grandfather to marry a woman he despises; Camilla, taking care of her grandmother, becomes increasingly isolated; Charles runs away from rehab with a married woman and no longer speaks to Camilla; and Richard, after recovering from his wounds, becomes a lonely academic with an unrequited love for Camilla. He sees Henry's death as having cut the cord that bound them, setting them all adrift. The book ends with Richard recounting a strange dream where he meets Henry in a tall atrium, unable to say all he feels about what has happened. Finally, he settles on asking, "Are you happy here?" Henry replies, "Not particularly. But you're not very happy where you are, either," and walks away."
This was a slow read, but I loved all of it.
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