persuasively she chronicles the steps from studying classics to committing murder. This is a difficult transition to relate in a believable manner, and all the more difficult given Tartt's decision to tell the story from the perspective of one of the most genial of the conspirators. Her story could easily come across as implausible—or even risible—in its recreation of Dionysian rites on a Vermont college campus, and its attempt to convince us that a mild-mannered transfer student with a taste for ancient languages can evolve, through a series of almost random events, into a killer. Yet convince us she does, and the intimacy with which Tartt brings her readers into the psychological miasma of the unfolding plot is one of the most compelling features of The Secret History. Planned and cancelled screen adaptations The novel has been tapped by several filmmakers in the decades since its release for a possible film or television adaptation; however, all have been unsuccessful. Producer Alan J. Pakula first acquired film rights at the book's publishing in 1992, with a planned screenplay by writers Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Work was set to begin in late 1998 (director Scott Hicks was rumored to have already been hired) when Pakula's death in a car accident in November caused the project to fall through. The 2002 publication of Tartt's second novel The Little Friend caused a resurgence of interest in The Secret History. A new adaptation was announced by Miramax Films, to be produced by Harvey Weinstein and headed by siblings Jake and Gwyneth Paltrow, who hoped to star as the characters Charles and Camila Macaulay respectively. The death of the siblings' father Bruce Paltrow in October of that year caused the project to be shelved again, and the rights were reinstated to Tartt. At the 2013 publication of Tartt's third novel The Goldfinch, interest in another adaptation was rekindled, this time for television with Tartt's school peers Melissa Rosenberg and Bret Easton Ellis at the helm (Ellis is the novel's co-dedicatee). This attempt also fell through after Rosenberg and Ellis failed to find a network or streaming platform interested in the project. Tartt's unhappiness with the 2019 film version of The Goldfinch caused many to speculate she would not allow further screen adaptations of any of her novels, leaving The Secret History in limbo. Tartt fired her longtime agent Amanda Urban over the film and