After reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt I was very excited to read another book by her. The Little Friend was just as dark as The Secret History and just as great! Some parts moved rather slow as it is a dense book to read, but that is expected. However, once you reach the last chapter, you cannot put it down. The Little Friend is about a family that breaks after their brother/son Robin gets killed in their own back yard when the two daughters are young. Harriet being a baby at the time does not remember her brother at all, she simply misses the past when she knew times were happier. Allison the older sister simply stopped trying when Robin died, just as her mother did. Harriet in search of Robin's killer ends up being hunted by the very same terribly, dangerous family she in search of.
While Harriet is chasing down Danny Ratliff and plotting to kill him, you are still watching her everyday struggles. Her lack of family weighs down on her and yet she cannot seem to get anyone to listen to her. Her frustrations with her family are palpable. The more you see things through Harriet's eyes the more you feel for her. When Harriet and Danny Ratliff are finally cornered they end up trying to kill each other at a water tower. As Harriet narrowly escapes she leave Danny stuck in a water tower constantly jumping up from the bottom in order to get air since he cannot swim. After she escapes, Harriet falls extremely ill and is taken to the hospital where she heres how Danny was actually Robin's friend. Thinking she left Danny in the tower to die, she feels an immense wave of guilt run through, a wave that she has felt many times. As a reader, you are so sided with Harriet that you are as sure as she is that Danny killed her brother. However, when you see how it turns out you realize that you put all your trust and perspective into a twelve year old child. Harriet comes off so much older than she is, so you don't see her flawed logic until it comes crashing down on her. The end of the novel stops with Harriet's best friend Hely telling his best friend the lie Harriet told him covering up what really happened at the water tower. You never find out who killed Robin and you never see the end between Danny and Harriet. For some reason, even though the book was about Harriet hunting down Robin's killer it isn't important that you never find out.
This book is about Harriet and what happens to her, or any kid, when they are unsupervised, headstrong, and unloved. Although, her great aunts and mother claim to love her they did not in the way that she needed. Harriet was too strong-minded and that upset the older women in her life. Her mother was truly Ida, the maid, and Harriet never got to say goodbye or tell her how much she loved her. It was a painful moment to read when Ida left even though Harriet wasn't even there. I think Harriet took on this dangerous task of finding her brother's killer not only to please her family that never cared for her, but because she couldn't let herself turn in to her mother and sister. They never cared about anything and slept almost all day. Harriet would stay up late by herself because there was no one who cared if she had a curfew or what she ate for dinner. She needed to feel important and she felt she had to prove her worth. Her search to find and kill Danny was a distraction from the everyday sadness she faced.
For me, racism was a huge part of this book. It was the reason why there was so much tension in the town as a whole and in turn every family. Since this was rural Mississippi in the time where African Americans had there own part of town and worked as house maids for the white folk's rich or poor, the relations between the two races stood out. Ida was loved by the two girls, Harriet and Allison for she took on the role of a mother for them, but Charlotte (their biological mother) did not like her and paid Ida very little. After Harriet complained to her mother (more out of frustration with worthless Charlotte than Ida), Ida was so upset she decided that the pay was not worth working at their house. There relationship with Ida had always been strained and Harriet's uncontrollable emotions were the tipping point. Then there was Odean, who was the house maid for Harriet's Great Aunt Libby. Ocean had been working for Libby for almost 40 years and when Libby passed away no one thought to tell Odean. The day of the funeral Odean showed up at Harriet's grandmother's house upset that no one thought to tell her that Libby was dead. No one understood that Libby and Odean were more than just an employer and employee, they were long time friends. Only Harriet and Allison could understand their relationship because it was similar to their's with Ida.
After I finished reading The Little Friend, all I could think about was how Harriet would turn out. Her childhood was wrecked with actions and struggles most adults don't even face and she stood tall through all of it. What would a child who was trying to kill a grown man turn out to be like? If anyone has read this book, I would love to hear thoughts!
No comments:
Post a Comment