The Little Friend

By: Donna Tartt

Narrated by: Karen White

Length: 25 hrs and 53 mins

Publisher's summary

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Goldfinch comes an utterly riveting novel set in Mississippi of childhood, innocence, and evil. • “Destined to become a special kind of classic.” —The New York Times Book Review

The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated. So it is that Robin’s sister Harriet—unnervingly bright, insufferably determined, and unduly influenced by the fiction of Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson--sets out to unmask his killer. Aided only by her worshipful friend Hely, Harriet crosses her town’s rigid lines of race and caste and burrows deep into her family’s history of loss. Filled with hairpin turns of plot and “a bustling, ridiculous humanity worthy of Dickens” (The New York Times Book Review), The Little Friend is a work of myriad enchantments by a writer of prodigious talent.

©2002 Donna Tartt (P)2002 Books On Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

2003, Orange Prize for Fiction, Nominated

"This extraordinary book [has] a main character, a twelve-year-old girl named Harriet Cleve Dufresnes, who ranks up there with Huck Finn, Miss Havisham, Quentin Compson, and Philip Marlowe, fictional characters who don't seem in the least fictional.... To Kill a Mockingbird If is the childhood that everyone wanted and no one really had, The Little Friend is childhood as it is, by turns enchanting and terrifying." (Malcolm Jones, Newsweek)

"Breathtaking... A sublime tale rich in religious overtones, moral ambiguities, and violent, poetic acts... From its darkly enticing opening, we are held spellbound." (Lisa Shea, Elle)

"Languidly atmospheric...psychologically acute...A rich novel that takes you somewhere worth going." (The New Yorker)

"It is an exceptionally suspenseful, flawlessly written story." (Booklist)

Couldn't finish because of the narration

How did the narrator detract from the book?

The lack of proper inflection and intonation this that this narrator presented as she virtually barked the story to us resulted in such and uneasy and confusing cadence that I found the story impossible to follow. I made it to chapter 6 - which in this book, was quite far! But at that point I realized that I had little idea of what was going on in the story simply because the narrator made it so difficult to follow. I will definitely try this book in hard copy, as it seems to be a beautifully written story.

I loved it!

I loved this story! It kept my attention, all night. But it ended without resolution. I want to know what happened next.

Donna Tartt!!!

What made the experience of listening to The Little Friend the most enjoyable?

Great characters, good story, narration didn't get in the way.

What other book might you compare The Little Friend to and why?

Donna Tarrt writes mysteries based on complicated, realistic relationships between believeable characters. I sank into a world I sometimes forgot didn't exist.

What about Karen White’s performance did you like?

Karen White's narration NEVER distracted me from the story. Almost zero other narrators perform so splendidly.

If you could take any character from The Little Friend out to dinner, who would it be and why?

All the best characters ended up dead at the end of the book, so no way I'm inviting their corpses to my house.

Just kidding... I don't want to spoil the book. Any of the main characters would make entertaining dinner guests, although I'd hide the silver before the Radcliff's visit.

Any additional comments?

Long and luxurious.

Fantastic

Thia is one of my all time favorites. I didn't want it to end.

well written but long

book was enjoyable enough. beautifully written but long and dragged in places. listened in car and book was not great for having to concentrate on things other than the writing.

Narrator distracts from the story

I just finished The Goldfinch and enjoyed it immensely, so thought I would enjoy The Little Friend. It is set in the south and the narrator has a very distracting southern accent. I am a southerner myself, but could not identify what the accent was supposed to be. But the worst part was that every sentence sounded like it had an exclamation point at the end(!) It was so artificial that I could not pay attention to the story. I quit after a few chapters and bought the hardcover book.

Harper Lee She Aint

Where does The Little Friend rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Near the middle. (Some of my favorite audiobooks were written by Charles Dickens and John Grisham...Tartt doesn't quite measure up.)

What did you like best about this story?

The main character, Harriet was fun. She reminded me off my mother so thoroughly that Harriet even looks like Mom. This means she's tough, calculating, and sure to win in the end. She was written very well as a Southern tomboy, which is a very difficult thing to be given the nature of Southern mothers. I'm sorry Edie didn't insist that Harriet participate in that Southern staple, the beauty pageant.

Would you listen to another book narrated by Karen White?

I'm not sure about that. I was very disappointed in the narration primarily because White didn't do her homework. As another reviewer from the Deep South said, she mispronounced many Southernisms which made me laugh and lose the story line every time. Kudzu is pronounced KUDzoo, not Could-zoo. The Mississippi County is pronounced OK-tibbe-HA, not okti-BE-ha. And like the other reviewer, when White mentioned the fish whose name is pronounced Craw-pee, I immediately imagined the little feller swimmin' 'round in the commode.

I'm equally unhappy with Tartt for allowing this bastardization of the Southern dialect. I haven't been so shaken by poor pronunciation since Bill O'Reilly, in Killing Lincoln, talked at length about horse soldiers in the Civil War - you know, the guys in the CALvary. (Shudder.) I guess I should read Killing Jesus to see if the virgin Mary's son died on Cavelry.

Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

It made me laugh often. I'm just not sure if I laughed in the right places.

Any additional comments?

I've purchased the last of Tartt's three books. I'm reserving my overall opinion until I've finished it. I think she has an amazing talent. I just wonder how many junkies she had to interview in order to get so thoroughly inside their heads.

Left wanting a little more

Overall I enjoyed the book, but the set up led me to expect something more. It was definitely interesting.

Probably Not Worth Buying

Is there anything you would change about this book?

Honestly, I hesitate to condemn the book completely because she is well written as far as organizing and sentence structure, but the story is so incredibly boring that I was unable to keep my focus on what was being said. I listened for the full 25 hours expecting something truly interesting to happen and it never did. There were unanswered questions that could have made the story interesting but in all the book failed to be interesting. I feel bad for feeling this way.

Would you ever listen to anything by Donna Tartt again?

I will probably never listen or read anything by this Author again.

Have you listened to any of Karen White’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I have not listened to any of Karen White's narration but I felt she did a wonderful job of it. Her voice was enjoyable and she was able to convince me that both the female and male characters were real.

Did The Little Friend inspire you to do anything?

What a loaded question...I will refrain from answering this question.

Don't waste your time

exactly what was the point of this story? The ending makes the whole book pointless.