I must say I haven't thought about a connection between Donna Tartt's book and Twin Peaks but I suppose there could be in the Las Vegas scenes.  I mean there is that line on page 410 where it says 'There were classes where you built solar panels and had seminars with Nobel-winning economists, and classes where all you did was listen to Tupac records or watch old episodes of Twin Peaks.'

Interesting 🙂

I found the structure a tad similar, the beginning in NY then the move to Las Vegas which was very unexpected and a complete waste of time for the character (although fascinating in the book).

I suppose Mark Frost likes Donna Tartt since he decided to write his own Secret History, as she did.

When I first read Donna Tartt's The Secret History I thought it was in the similar vain  to Barbara Vine's (Ruth Rendell) A Fatal Inversion.   This was Ruth Rendell's first attempt at writing a literary crime novel away from the Wexford novels or the psychological novels under the Ruth Rendell moniker.  I felt when Donna Tartt wrote The Secret History she was continue this vein of literary crime novel.  Actually I think the Vine novels by Rendell are some of her best work.  I especially liked Asta's Book.  Donna Tartt's other book The Little Friend is also a good read in the vain of To Kill A Mockingbird.

Donna Tartt always seems to start with some dramatic event, or a mystery, and then just settles a mood that lingers on and on, without much happening, which again I find is very close to The Return.

Posted by: Teo Peaks

Donna Tartt always seems to start with some dramatic event, or a mystery, and then just settles a mood that lingers on and on, without much happening, which again I find is very close to The Return.

Yes that is so true.  It is like get the dramatic event out of the way first and then settle for a character study for the rest of the book.

And I think Mark Frost particularly likes that.

His movie Storyville was all about that, some starting event,  a rather uninteresting plot, but a mood.