“The
storytelling gift is innate: one has it or one doesn't. But style is at least
partly a learned thing: one refines it by looking and listening and reading and
practice - by work” – Donna Tartt
Tartt, born on this date in 1963, dislikes the concept that authors should always have something new on the drawing board, so to speak. Thus, she only produces a new book about once every 10 years. But when they do appear, her books are always winners, starting with The Secret History in 1992, then The Little Friend in 2002, and The Goldfinch, in 2013.
Tartt has
largely written in a style that reflects 19th Century writers,
pretty uncommon in the briefer, more to-the-point prose style of most
contemporary writers. Tartt’s version not only has won her legions
of followers but also many prestigious awards, including the WH Smith Literary
Award for The Little Friend, and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The
Goldfinch, putting her onto Time
magazine’s "100 Most Influential People” list in 2014.
Tartt said that when she’s writing
she is concentrating 
on concrete detail: the color a room is painted, or the
way a drop of water rolls off a wet leaf after a rain. “I love the tradition of Dickens,” she
explained, “where even the most minor
walk-on characters are twitching and particular and alive.”
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