THE SECRET HISTORY
six-part series
The story
The Secret History is a novel by Donna Tartt and tells the story of six college students and the circumstances of how one of them was murdered. Don’t worry, that’s not a spoiler. We’re told of Bunny Corcoran’s death in the first few pages.
What is more horrific are the events before and after of his friends and murderers. Richard Papen attends Hampden college in order to escape him mundane life in Plano, Texas. There he is captivated by five classics students; Henry Winter, Francis Abernathy, Camila Macauley, Charles Macauley and Bunny Corcoran.
Richard soon is integrated into their group but realises he wished he hadn’t.
The reason
This is the first book I adapted in this project. It is one of my favourite novels and so one I had the clearest vision of, having read it multiple times. It is a lengthy book with a complex narrative and therefore I felt it lent itself to a TV format more than squeezing it all into a single film and cutting out lots of detail and moments. I decided on a six-part series as I feel that this format is the one I engage with myself the most and fitted the story more comfortably that the other typical number of 13 or 3.
EPISODE OVERVIEWS BELOW
Episode 1
Episode 2
Episode 3
EPISODE 4
Episode 5
Episode 6
