“The Secret History” is set at seemingly idyllic Hampden college in Vermont and holds all the charms of any classic. The reader is instantly hooked in with the prologue in which narrator, Richard Papen, admits to the murder of a fellow student and the novel becomes a memoir of sorts. 

The novel starts with Richard signing up to Hampden college to study Greek and the classics purely to escape from his boring life in Plano, California and it is in that one moment his life is set on an entirely different course. At Hampden he meets Julian Morrow, the classics teacher, who soon becomes the father he never felt he had, and the the five other Greek students, who isolate themselves from the rest of the college.

Richard’s fellow students are my favourite element of the novel and at first appear flawless and unattainable. They are incredibly intelligent, seemingly perfect and so obsessed with the Greeks that the story itself contains all the elements of a tragic Greek myth as they all collapse under the burden of what they’ve done. 

Watching the students slowly fall apart as the novel progresses is made all the more interesting as we learn about underlying tensions between them and, as Richard struggles with the morals of what they have done, constant dangers are presented to them. 

Unusually, the novel begins with the murder and therefore becomes less of a whodunit and more of a why. This is an interesting choice to make as the reader immediately knows that Richard has gotten away with it and much of the novel is inside his mind. Richard is a traditionally lonely narrator who creates perfect versions of the other Greek students to make up for his thus far boring and uneventful life and is obsessed with the idea of beauty. He talks about sex a lot through the novel but is also in love with the beauty of poetry, Greek in particular. 

Richard says that the first sentence he learnt in Greek is “beauty is harsh”, which, for me, sums up the book completely, although beauty is rarely mentioned by any of the characters at all.

The last few pages of the book lead up to a dramatic climax and the reader feels the tension growing but, although Richard has hinted at the ending, is still shocked at the last page. This section, for me, was the part where I could not put the book down and I am still thinking about the end of the epilogue. 

My only criticism would be that, at times, the plot can ramble, which is understandable as it is a reflection on events that happened years ago, but can be tiring at times to get past bits where it feels like nothing is happening. However, the characters were so interesting and complex that it is worth it to read between the lines at the underlying meanings of all their interactions and I would definitely recommend it.