Help identify this horror story mentioned in "The Secret History"

June 1, 2008 9:56 AM

I've just finished reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History. At one point Tartt references a supposedly famous horror story, but I don't understand the reference! Can anyone identify it?

The description:

"I liked especially going to the little country grocery in North Hampden (whose ancient proprietors, mother and son, were said to have been the inspiration for a famous and frequently anthologized horror story from the 1950s)"

The book, of course, includes numerous references to actual works of literature, so I can only assume that this is a real story. Unfortunately, I have no idea what this might be. Does anyone know?

posted by punchdrunkhistory to writing & language (13 comments total)

Psycho?
posted by sanka at 10:22 AM on June 1, 2008

Well, North Hampden is a fictional place. But it sounds like a reference to Ed Gein, on whom Psycho was based.
posted by amro at 10:22 AM on June 1, 2008

Sounded like Psycho to me too, but I was afraid to say it. Is there a particular written account that's anthologized especially often?
posted by box at 10:50 AM on June 1, 2008

It doesn't sound like a specific reference to me. It may be an oblique reference, given the Southern setting, to Flannery O'Connor -- whose stories are horror-inflected, famous, and frequently anthologized.
posted by dhartung at 11:26 AM on June 1, 2008

(Oh, sorry -- Tartt is southern, but the book is New England. Hmm. In any case, Gein was Midwest through and through.)
posted by dhartung at 11:28 AM on June 1, 2008

This book and Ellis' The Rules of Attraction reference one another in little one-liners. I could easily see her making yet another reference. My 1950's horror anthologies are not that complete, I'm afraid; this story idea does not sound familiar to me. I fumbled and thought of Bradbury's "Heavy-Set," but that was put out in 1964. Psycho itself is a novel.
posted by adipocere at 11:30 AM on June 1, 2008

Lovecraft is generally thought of as being set in an around Hampden Mass. Is that what we're talking about? The Tree on the Hill mentions it explicitly. Could it be him?
posted by The Bellman at 12:34 PM on June 1, 2008

It could, in fact, be The Dunwich Horror (certainly among the most famous of the Lovecraft tales), about which Lovecraft wrote that Dunwich is "a vague echo of the decadent Massachusetts countryside around Springfield--say Wilbraham, Monson and Hampden." [Wiki]. The only problem is that it was written in 1928, but it was probably being antholgized heavily in the 50s.
posted by The Bellman at 12:41 PM on June 1, 2008

Not everything Tartt references in TSH is real. I always assumed the horror story was as fictional as the Charlie Sheen movie Richard later goes to see.
posted by GaelFC at 12:47 PM on June 1, 2008

The Bellman: The (indeed fictional) town of North Hampden is in Vermont.

Otherwise - it may well be Ed Gein! I hadn't heard of him before, but the story would seem to fit, for the most part. (Especially considering that - according to the Wikipedia link - Bret Easton Ellis also references him in American Psycho.)
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 1:32 PM on June 1, 2008

"[Bret Easton] Ellis often uses recurring characters and settings. Major characters in one novel may become minor ones in the next, or vice versa. Camden College, a fictional New England liberal arts college, is frequently referenced. It is based on Bennington College, which Ellis himself attended, where he met and befriended fellow writer Donna Tartt."^*
posted by ericb at 2:27 PM on June 1, 2008

But Ed Gein was real, so it's not like this store-running couple inspired HIM. And stories about Ed Gein (Psycho, et al) were inspired by Gein so...what's the fictional story? Again, I think this was Tartt being creative and inventing the "much-anthologized story."
posted by GaelFC at 2:44 PM on June 1, 2008

GaelFC: You're right ... I guess that does pose some interesting logistic problems. And you may be right about it being her invention! (It could also be the case that Tartt was inspired by Ed Gein for both the mother-son mention and the story THEY supposedly inspired.)
posted by punchdrunkhistory at 3:35 PM on June 1, 2008