"The Little Friend" by Donna Tartt, summary

The novel transports the reader to the sultry, muggy atmosphere of Alexandria, Mississippi. The mystery remains unsolved. Work on this massive book lasted from 1992 to 2002, requiring the author to delve deeply into the everyday life of the American South and meticulously study the habits of the most dangerous species of venomous snakes. In 2003, the work won the prestigious British WH Smith Literary Award.

The Mystery of the Black Tupelo

On a festive Sunday in May 1964, the quiet life of the respectable provincial Cleave family was shattered in an instant. Nine-year-old Robin died in the yard. The boy was found hanging from a black tupelo tree branch among clotheslines and gardenia bushes in the pre-storm twilight of Mother’s Day. The investigation quickly reached a dead end. For years, townspeople whispered about a mythical drifter, a disconsolate Charlotte swallowed pills in the dim light of curtained rooms, and his father, having abandoned the family, finally settled in Nashville.

At family gatherings, relatives flatly refused to discuss the details of the fateful evening. Grandmother Edith carefully kept the last blurry photo of her grandson, taken before the approaching storm, in a chocolate box. Legends arose in place of facts. The Clive sisters loved to transform past misfortunes into touching drawing-room tales, bringing each old tale to a harmonious chorus. The tragedy that had befallen could not be smoothed over with fiction. The unsolved crime forever split the life of the old house into two incompatible halves, leaving no hope for its former quiet happiness.

Near the neighbor’s fence, an old blunt tree had never been cut down. Its branches had turned black. The Fontaine neighbor was unable to persuade the family to get rid of the withered giant, in whose branches the abandoned children’s shelter continued to slowly rot.

Myths of "Adversity" and Suspicion

Twelve years after the tragedy, the neglected Cleave house had sunk into a restless oblivion. Sixteen-year-old Allison was asleep. Unlike her sister, Harriet had grown up a stocky, rebellious woman with an iron will, disdaining sentimentality and avidly reading about Captain Scott’s polar expeditions and Houdini’s magic tricks. The girl dreamed of a lost past. All that remained of the family estate, "Trouble," where her grandfather, a judge, had perished for debt were the faded Dutch tiles inscribed with the family name and the antique sideboards, now scattered among her aunts’ rooms.

The death of Vinnie, the decrepit cat who held the memory of the dead boy, suddenly sparked an investigation. The veterinarian euthanized the terminally ill pet. Allison collapsed hysterically on the kitchen linoleum, and during her pet’s burial, she threw her school ID card into the damp earth, amid the piercing screams of her neighbor, Fontaine. In the barn, Harriet experienced death for the first time. The icy cold of the frozen fur evoked a deep rage in the child’s soul and a firm resolve to punish the one responsible for her brother’s death.

Danny Ratliff, a member of a local criminal clan, came to the detective’s attention. Healy’s older brother mentioned his criminal tendencies, and the housekeeper, Ida, recalled a brazen teenager hanging around the house on that fateful evening. The image of the enemy formed in the girl’s mind instantly. Cutting out a photo of the enemy from the previous year’s school yearbook, Harriet solemnly pasted it into her notebook of summer targets. The shooting on the river dispelled any doubts.

Near a shabby town pool hall, Healy overheard the drunken arguing of local card players and spotted Danny sitting next to his older brother, Farish. A bearded, one-eyed man stood out among the players. This ex-convict savagely beat the winnings out of the crippled father of the Odum family, before the silent eyes of the spectators and his young daughter. A thirst for revenge grew in the children’s hearts. A venomous snake, capable of stealthily attacking the offender without attracting police attention or the sound of gunfire, seemed the ideal weapon of revenge.

Aunt Libby’s bedroom smelled of vetiver. The old woman recalled the inexplicable appearance of a man’s hat on her bedpost three days before Robin’s long-ago death. No one could enter the locked house. The mysterious sign hung in the air of family memories, along with tales of sudden deaths and ancient superstitions of the inhabitants of the vanished estate. Instead of mysticism, Harriet persistently sought earthly culprits for the misfortune.

Sectarian boxes and the escape of the reptiles

A dangerous snake hunt in the swampy ditches of the new settlement of Oak Lawn nearly ended for the accomplices, exhausted by the scorching sun, with severe heatstroke, panic, and a fatal bite from a disturbed copperhead. Suddenly, a local idiot came to the rescue. Curtis Ratliff, wandering the street, led the children to the house of his brother, Eugene, a fanatical cult member who kept boxes of venomous rattlesnakes and king cobras. Cages were piled in the back of the truck.

Late that evening, the accomplices secretly climbed the iron fire escape and entered the vacant apartment. The children stole the cobra. They pushed the heavy wooden box onto the fire porch and hid it under the building’s stilts, while a frightened Healy accidentally knocked down the latch of the adjacent cage, releasing the rattlesnakes. Footsteps thundered on the stairs. An enraged Farish attacked Danny with his fists, and the viper, crawling out of the darkness, sank its teeth into the hand of the returning preacher.

The boy, huddled under a dirty chair, was frozen by the furious hissing of the slithering reptiles. Scaly rings flickered in the darkness. Taking advantage of the confusion caused by the snake bite, the frightened accomplice ran out into the street under the cover of the night shadows.

An error on the overpass and a series of losses

The next morning, the stolen cobra was transported on a cart to an abandoned concrete overpass. The ambush promised victory. Seeing Danny’s gold convertible approaching, the avengers collectively pushed the crate over the edge of the railing, right into the oncoming car. A stroke of luck ruined their plans. The Ratliffs’ decrepit grandmother was at the wheel, and the collapsed reptile sank its teeth into her shoulder, forcing the car into a ditch amid the agonized screams of its unfortunate victim.

Panicked, the girl hurried to escape retribution at a Christian camp on Lake Selby. The alien environment was oppressive. Instead of the long-awaited salvation, the camp greeted her with stuffy teepees, sanctimonious lectures from teachers, and cruel ridicule from her peers, culminating in a fight over a letter from an accomplice. Tragic news soon arrived. Grandmother Edith had been in an accident at an intersection, and meek Aunt Libby suffered a head injury and died in the hospital from a sudden cerebral hemorrhage.

In Alexandria, the funeral drew a crowd of indifferent relatives. The funeral parlor smelled of stifling, sticky tuberoses, the sweet aroma of which caused the orphan, exhausted by tears and guilt, to faint. Outside, an old man lifted the orphan into a stranger’s hearse. Coming to in the funeral limousine, Harriet shuddered as she met the fierce gaze of Danny Ratliff as he drove past. The enemy recognized her.

After Libby’s funeral, the housekeeper, Ida, packed her meager belongings and left for Hattiesburg to be with her daughter forever. The helpless mother fussed. Leaving piles of unwashed dishes and empty bottles of sleeping pills in the sink, Charlotte mindlessly polished doorknobs and suggested her daughters move to a strange city. Sister Allison cried for days. The empty house left only a scorched, icy wasteland, demanding the immediate completion of the vendetta at any cost.

On the riverbank, Harriet accidentally encountered the impoverished Odum children. A grimy girl, Lasharon, pulled on her fingers the treasured red gloves, once given to her by the housekeeper, Ida, but lost in the barn. A furious fight broke out. Having forcibly snatched the cherished item from the strangers’ wrists, the orphan shoved it into her pocket and ran away. The stolen treasure brought no relief.

Deadly duel in a cistern

Armed with her father’s old revolver, the twelve-year-old avenger climbed with great difficulty up the rusty metal rungs to the roof of a tall water tower near the marshalling yard. Inside was a stash. Discovering the coveted packets of crystalline white powder under a hatch, the girl unhesitatingly ripped open the packaging and dumped the entire quantity of meth into the black, stagnant water of the reservoir. Shots rang out below. Addicted to drugs, Danny shot his older brother, Farish, and the guard dogs inside the car before rushing upstairs to retrieve the goods.

The recoil from the misfire broke the girl’s nose, causing her revolver to drop onto the gravel. A deadly struggle ensued in the cistern. Enraged by the drug-fueled attack, the criminal attempted to drown Harriet. The girl feigned death thanks to Houdini’s lessons, and her non-swimmer, rushing for the exit, fell off the rotten ladder into the abyss. After her escape, the poisonous water triggered severe seizures. Waking up in a hospital bed with a diagnosis of epilepsy, Harriet learned of the surviving Danny’s arrest for fratricide, while the frivolous Healy attempted to credit his friend with defeating the bandit, under the mocking gaze of her older brother.