Whatever happened to Donna Tartt?

I found a box of books in the attic yesterday, and a signed copy of Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch was buried there. I added it to the bookshelf alongside a signed copy of The Little Friend.

I’m a massive fan of Donna Tartt, particularly (like many people) The Secret History, which I wrote about recently. It got me thinking—whatever happened to Donna Tartt?

It has been more than a decade since Tartt published her last novel, The Goldfinch (2013), which won the Pulitzer Prize and cemented her status as one of the most celebrated literary figures of our time. But since then? Silence.

Tartt has never been a prolific writer. She famously takes a decade (or more) between books, crafting intricate, deeply atmospheric novels that become instant modern classics. The Secret History (1992) and The Little Friend (2002) were each published with long gaps in between, setting a pattern of meticulous, slow-burn literary output. But now, more than ten years have passed since The Goldfinch, and there’s no official word on what comes next.

So, where is Donna Tartt? And why is the wait for her next novel taking even longer this time?

A writer on her own schedule

Tartt has always been fiercely private. She doesn’t engage in social media, rarely gives interviews, and seems to operate outside the frenzied cycle of modern literary promotion. She writes at her own pace, and that pace has always been slow. In a rare 2013 interview with The Guardian, she admitted:

"Books are real life to me. To be without a book is terrible... but writing them is something that takes the time it takes."

She describes her writing process as immersive, obsessive, and deeply personal. That’s likely why each of her novels is so rich in detail and psychological depth.

But even by her standards, the gap since The Goldfinch feels unusually long.

Was The Goldfinch a creative turning point?

Unlike The Secret History, which became a cult favourite, or The Little Friend, which received more mixed reviews, The Goldfinch was a global phenomenon. It won the Pulitzer, was adapted into a film (which flopped and did a disservice to the book), and sparked intense debate about its literary merit. Some critics loved it, while others found it bloated and overworked.

Could this have made Tartt rethink her next book? The weight of expectation after such a major success may be a factor. There’s also the possibility that she’s simply working on something vastly different, something that demands even more time. That or possibly a series of novels written simultaneously.

In past interviews, Tartt has discussed writing what feels right rather than what’s expected. This could mean she’s crafting something on an even larger scale or struggling to find the right shape for her next story.

Could she be finished with publishing?

Another unlikely but not impossible theory is that Tartt has simply stepped away from public literary life. And she’s done. She’s always been an enigmatic presence, more in common with reclusive 20th-century authors than with contemporary writers who maintain a public persona.

There’s precedent for this. J.D. Salinger, another slow working, intensely private writer, famously never published another book after The Catcher in the Rye, despite reportedly continuing to write for decades.

Then there is Thomas Pynchon, known for his avoidance of publicity, who has only published sporadically over the decades, maintaining an air of mystery around his work. 

Harper Lee famously took 55 years between To Kill a Mockingbird and the controversial Go Set a Watchman. 

Even Cormac McCarthy went 16 years between The Road and his final two novels, The Passenger and Stella Maris.

Interestingly, Tartt's college contemporary, Bret Easton Ellis, with whom she studied at Bennington College in the 1980s, has been more prolific in his literary output. While Ellis has published multiple novels, including Less Than Zero and American Psycho, and maintained a prominent public presence, Tartt has remained selective and private about her work. Their time at Bennington was a formative period characterised by literary ambition and competition, yet their careers took vastly different trajectories.

Additionally, an article in Vulture noted that Tartt, like Joan Didion and Eve Babitz, represents a vanishing breed of literary figures who guard their personal lives and let the mystery surrounding them fuel their work’s allure. This level of secrecy is increasingly rare in an era where authors are expected to engage constantly with their audiences. Tartt’s deliberate absence from public discourse only intensifies speculation about her next move.

That said, there’s no indication she has retired from writing altogether. If anything, the long silence suggests she is still working on her own timeline.

So, what’s next?

At this point, nobody outside of Tartt’s inner circle knows when—or if—her next novel will arrive. But if history tells us anything, it’s that she will publish again. Her novels have always arrived when they’re ready, not a moment sooner.

The real question is: what kind of book is she writing? Will it be another sprawling epic like The Goldfinch, a tightly wound thriller like The Secret History, or something completely unexpected?

For now, all we can do is wait. And, if you’re missing Tartt’s writing, maybe it’s time to revisit her past work. For me, it stands the test of time.