After I moved to a town very close to Bennington (referred to as “Hampden” in the novel), I found that I wanted to reread it in the context of the place. I have done this in a lot of places: rereading Interview with the Vampire in New Orleans and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil in Savannah and Just Kids in Brooklyn. The Secret History is a jewel box of a novel, rewarding the rereader with a thousand flashing facets every time I turn it in the sun. Beyond that joy, I have noticed a number of things in myself.
10. I feel an acute strangeness when I cross the Vermont state line, only minutes from my home, as if the landscape shifts dramatically around me.
9. When people are annoying and broad and stupid around me, I growl hoi polloi and barbaroi under my breath. I do not speak Greek.
8. I was already a big fountain pen geek, but using anything else seems silly. My monogrammed stationery seems just right, instead of a little extra.
7. The desire to run around in the woods doing weird rituals is nothing new for me, but the desire to do it in a chiton is novel.
6. Can I chew the leaves of the laurel in my driveway? How bad can it be?
5. Never a big fan of my time in Southern California, I find that I hate it even more in memory now than I did when it was ruining my skin and my optimism. Hand in hand with poor bystander Dickie boy.
4. Writing a burn book in Latin is such queen shit, Henry. Impeccable work.
3. I fear the coming of winter, though there is no hole in my roof.
2. A dear friend of mine read the novel for the first time this year and was surprisingly protective of Judy Poovey, of whom I never thought very much. On subsequent reread, she’s more fun than I remembered, the costume mistress and the shepherdess of the lost. Bless her.
1. I want to smoke without consequences. It worked for Henry! And Bunny, too.
