Why her novels take so long
Tartt explains her lengthy writing process by comparing creating large novels to painting a giant wall mural using a brush the size of an eyelash.
Donna Tartt
American
Born 1963
Born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and educated at Bennington College, Donna Tartt is an American novelist. She made her debut with The Secret History in 1992, followed by The Little Friend in 2002 and The Goldfinch in 2013—three stand-alone novels published roughly a decade apart rather than a series. Her books have been translated into forty languages. The Goldfinch won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was adapted into a 2019 film of the same name.
Tartt's novels blend classical literary traditions with dark narratives, returning to beauty, mortality, and moral ambiguity while drawing on art, philosophy, and human psychology. Her prose is meticulous and her plotting intricate, with long gaps between books. Alongside the Pulitzer, The Little Friend received the WH Smith Literary Award, and in 2014 Time magazine named her one of its "100 Most Influential People."
On LuvemBooks, we've reviewed The Goldfinch.
1
Books ReviewedIn Donna Tartt's own words
Donna Tartt reads an excerpt from The Goldfinch and discusses the book's origins and characters in conversation with Kirsty Wark.
Uploaded by Waterstones, 2014 · Watch on YouTube ·
Protecting her immersive writing state
Tartt describes how serious writing requires complete isolation, noting that merely anticipating an evening social event can disrupt her entire day of writing.
The formative impact of Stevenson
Tartt attributes the recurring themes of duality, alienation, and guilt throughout all her books to reading Robert Louis Stevenson's Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at age fourteen.
Also in this interview
Donna Tartt books in order
3 books; 1 reviewed on LuvemBooks. Dates and covers from Amazon.
1992The Secret HistoryAmazon ↗
2002The Little FriendAmazon ↗
2013Our review →
Ask LuvemBooks about Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt is an American novelist who publishes rarely but at scale — The Goldfinch, the one book we've reviewed, spans years of a boy's life after a museum bombing, all anchored by his secret possession of a Dutch Golden Age painting. That novel won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014 and holds a 4.0/5 reader rating from over 132,000 Amazon ratings, though its critical reception was sharply polarized. With just 1 book reviewed so far, our coverage is narrow, but it captures Tartt's signature mode: long, densely detailed literary fiction built around a single life-altering event.
- Where should I start?
- Start with The Goldfinch — it's the only Donna Tartt book we've reviewed, and it's the one that won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014. The story follows thirteen-year-old Theodore Decker from a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through years of moral and emotional upheaval, and it holds a 4.0/5 reader rating from over 132,000 Amazon ratings. Be aware that critical reception was sharply polarized, so it's a novel readers tend to either love or argue with.
- What's their writing style?
- Based on The Goldfinch, Tartt writes expansive literary fiction that traces a single catastrophic event — a museum bombing — across years of a character's life. Their work anchors sweeping emotional and moral fallout in a concrete object, in this case a stolen Dutch Golden Age painting. The ambition and length of that approach is exactly what split critics, producing some of the most polarized reception of any recent Pulitzer winner.
- Books we've reviewed
- We've reviewed 1 Donna Tartt book so far. The Goldfinch: A Novel is the Pulitzer-winning story of Theodore Decker, a boy whose life is upended by a terrorist attack at the Met and by his secret possession of a famous painting — it carries a 4.0/5 reader rating from over 132,000 Amazon ratings.
- What genre do they write?
- The Goldfinch, the one Tartt book we've reviewed, is classified as Fiction — specifically the kind of sprawling literary fiction that follows a character across years of moral and emotional fallout from a single event. It's the sort of novel that attracts major prizes, having won the Pulitzer in 2014, while also dividing critics.
- What should I read after The Goldfinch?
- Within Tartt's own work, the natural next step is The Secret History, which is listed among their notable works — though we haven't reviewed it yet, so we can't speak to it in detail. On LuvemBooks, The Goldfinch is currently the only Tartt novel with a full review, so our best recommendation is to start there if you haven't already.
Who is Donna Tartt?
Where should I start?
What's their writing style?
Books we've reviewed
What genre do they write?
What should I read after The Goldfinch?
Who is Donna Tartt?
Donna Tartt is an American novelist born in Greenwood, Mississippi, and educated at Bennington College. Their notable works include The Secret History, and their novel The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014. Tartt is known for ambitious literary fiction, and we've reviewed 1 of their books on LuvemBooks.
Follow up
What awards has Donna Tartt won?
What is Donna Tartt best known for?
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