Ah. Mayed. That. Earp.

The Guardian interviews Donna Tartt about The Little Friend, her latest novel, and attempts to clear up some of the myths and mysteries surrounding the 10 years since the release of The Secret History.

“Was she making fun of me? (One thinks of Carraway of Gatsby: ‘For a moment I suspected that he was pulling my leg… My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.’ And Vanity Fair called her ‘a character of her own fictive creation’.) Does she see herself like Henry in The Secret History, ‘a propagandist, routinely withholding information, leaking it only when it served his purpose’? Another (former) friend says that ‘she seems to have a natural love of intrigue’, and you wonder if this myth-making and mysterious self-creation are to protect the creative process, or are just her being a storyteller. Self-consciously writerly.”

Related: (all too brief) extract from The Little Friend; Donna Tartt Shrine.