◗ The Cloisters
BY KATY HAYS
If you’re a fan of The Secret History, The Cloisters will either annoy you, because it definitely owes a debt to Donna Tartt’s novel, or make you love it for its Gothic intensity and the claustrophobic academic focus.
Arts graduate Ann Sitwell escapes her small town (and the unexpected death of her father) to start a summer job at the Metro-politan Museum. Instead, she ends up at the far smaller The Cloisters, a museum specialising in medieval art. Was that switch down to fate, or was it fixed? That’s actually thein mind-altering plants, poisons and other illegal pursuits) are obsessed with charismatic Rachel–as is Ann herself. Rachel has a strange background… again, fate or fixed? When Ann discovers a 15th-century pack of Tarot cards, it seems that some of the questions in this intense novel will be answered, but perhaps not as you’d expect. Because perhaps none of the characters is really who you expect either. I thought it was great.
