"I think it's hard to write about children and to have an idea of innocence"
About this Quote
Tartt is poking at a sentimental reflex: the way “children” arrive in fiction pre-packaged as purity, a shortcut that flatters adult nostalgia more than it captures lived experience. Her phrasing is tellingly hedged - “I think,” “it’s hard” - not because she’s unsure, but because she’s describing a craft problem that resists simple rules. The difficulty isn’t just writing kids convincingly; it’s writing the adult idea of innocence without either endorsing it or sneering at it.
“Innocence” here is less a trait than a projection, a moral light we shine on children to reassure ourselves that the world once made sense. Tartt’s novels thrive on the opposite: the moment that light flickers. She’s interested in how quickly the supposedly untouched becomes implicated - in desire, violence, class, beauty, and the stories adults tell to justify their choices. To write a child as “innocent” is to risk turning them into a symbol, a decorative alibi. To deny innocence entirely is its own kind of pose, a knowingness that can be just as false.
The subtext is a warning about tone. Children in literature are high-stakes: they trigger protectiveness, disgust, tenderness, fear. The writer has to navigate those reflexes while keeping the child from becoming a mere plot device or moral instrument. Tartt’s line suggests that the most honest portrayal of childhood isn’t a shrine or a demolition; it’s an unstable middle, where innocence exists as a story people fight to preserve - and where the cracks are the point.
“Innocence” here is less a trait than a projection, a moral light we shine on children to reassure ourselves that the world once made sense. Tartt’s novels thrive on the opposite: the moment that light flickers. She’s interested in how quickly the supposedly untouched becomes implicated - in desire, violence, class, beauty, and the stories adults tell to justify their choices. To write a child as “innocent” is to risk turning them into a symbol, a decorative alibi. To deny innocence entirely is its own kind of pose, a knowingness that can be just as false.
The subtext is a warning about tone. Children in literature are high-stakes: they trigger protectiveness, disgust, tenderness, fear. The writer has to navigate those reflexes while keeping the child from becoming a mere plot device or moral instrument. Tartt’s line suggests that the most honest portrayal of childhood isn’t a shrine or a demolition; it’s an unstable middle, where innocence exists as a story people fight to preserve - and where the cracks are the point.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
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