The Goldfinch
January 2014
Donna Tartt / Little, Brown
It’s been 21 years since Donna Tartt stunned the literary world with her debut novel, the Generation X classic, The Secret History.
Her long awaited third novel, originally scheduled for a 2008 release, will finally remove Tartt from her first novel’s two-decade long shadow. Tartt’s protagonist is a 13-year-old New Yorker, Theo, who survives a terrorist attack at the Metropolitan Museum, which kills his mother, with whom Theo was very close. Fleeing the scene with a priceless painting, Carel Fabritius’ The Goldfinch, and a ring – on advice from an elderly man Theo comforts until his last breath – the novel’s first half is a fascinating look at modern adolescence.
Seemingly unwanted after the attack, Theo briefly lives at a friend’s luxury Manhattan apartment before his deadbeat addict (alcohol, gambling) of a dad (who left Theo and his mother for a Las Vegas floozy) takes him to his new home in the Nevada desert before returning to New York a few years later. Despite his cross-country adventures, the shadow of The Goldfinch lurks.
Part Catcher in the Rye, part commentary on post 9-11 New York, part suspense thriller, The Goldfinch is unforgettable.
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