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The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt
Description:
It begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a thirteen-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don’t know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art. As an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle. The Goldfinch combines vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher’s calm the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.
About The Author
Donna Tartt (born December 23, 1963) is an American writer and author of the novels The Secret History (1992), The Little Friend (2002), and The Goldfinch (2013). Tartt won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend in 2003 and the Pulitzer Prize (Fiction) for The Goldfinch in 2014 and she was named in the TIME 100: The 100 Most Influential People in 2014. Tartt has largely written in neo-romanticism-inflected prose that borrows heavily from the stylings of 19th century literature. This prose style is relatively uncommon in contemporary American literary fiction, particularly given a present tendency by fiction writers and literary critics to favor a more brief and to-the-point prose style. This prose style also stands in stark contrast to her former classmate Bret Easton Ellis’ curt, 20th century-inspired minimalist style in Less Than Zero, which incorporates a similar setting and has some overlap in character types and themes.
A number of recurring literary themes occur in Tartt’s novels, including those related to social class and social stratification, guilt, and aesthetic beauty.
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