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Donna Tartt

The Goldfinch: A Novel (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction) Hardcover – October 22, 2013

by Donna Tartt (Author)

33,536 ratings

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A young New Yorker grieving his mother's death is pulled into a gritty underworld of art and wealth in this "extraordinary" and beloved Pulitzer Prize winner that "connects with the heart as well as the mind" (Stephen King, New York Times Book Review).

Theo Decker, a 13-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 a longing for his mother, he clings to the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into a wealthy and insular art community.

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 is a mesmerizing, stay-up-all-night and tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention. From the streets of New York to the dark corners of the art underworld, this "soaring masterpiece" examines the devastating impact of grief and the ruthless machinations of fate (Ron Charles, Washington Post).

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

An Amazon Best Book of the Month, October 2013: It's hard to articulate just how much--and why--The Goldfinch held such power for me as a reader. Always a sucker for a good boy-and-his-mom story, I probably was taken in at first by the cruelly beautiful passages in which 13-year-old Theo Decker tells of the accident that killed his beloved mother and set his fate. But even when the scene shifts--first Theo goes to live with his schoolmate’s picture-perfect (except it isn’t) family on Park Avenue, then to Las Vegas with his father and his trashy wife, then back to a New York antiques shop--I remained mesmerized. Along with Boris, Theo’s Ukrainian high school sidekick, and Hobie, one of the most wonderfully eccentric characters in modern literature, Theo--strange, grieving, effete, alcoholic and often not close to honorable Theo--had taken root in my heart. Still, The Goldfinch is more than a 700-plus page turner about a tragic loss: it’s also a globe-spanning mystery about a painting that has gone missing, an examination of friendship, and a rumination on the nature of art and appearances. Most of all, it is a sometimes operatic, often unnerving and always moving chronicle of a certain kind of life. “Things would have turned out better if she had lived,” Theo said of his mother, fourteen years after she died. An understatement if ever there was one, but one that makes the selfish reader cry out: Oh, but then we wouldn’t have had this brilliant book! --Sara Nelson

From Publishers Weekly

Donna Tartt's latest novel clocks in at an unwieldy 784 pages. The story begins with an explosion at the Metropolitan Museum that kills narrator Theo Decker's beloved mother and results in his unlikely possession of a Dutch masterwork called The Goldfinch. Shootouts, gangsters, pillowcases, storage lockers, and the black market for art all play parts in the ensuing life of the painting in Theo's care. With the same flair for suspense that made The Secret History (1992) such a masterpiece, The Goldfinch features the pulp of a typical bildungsroman—Theo's dissolution into teenage delinquency and climb back out, his passionate friendship with the very funny Boris, his obsession with Pippa (a girl he first encounters minutes before the explosion)—but the painting is the novel's secret heart. Theo's fate hinges on the painting, and both take on depth as it steers Theo's life. Some sentences are clunky (suddenly and meanwhile abound), metaphors are repetitive (Theo's mother is compared to birds three times in 10 pages), and plot points are overly coincidental (as if inspired by TV), but there's a bewitching urgency to the narration that's impossible to resist. Theo is magnetic, perhaps because of his well-meaning criminality. The Goldfinch is a pleasure to read; with more economy to the brushstrokes, it might have been great. Agent: Amanda Urban, ICM. (Oct. 22)

From Booklist

*Starred Review* Cataclysmic loss and rupture with criminal intent visited upon the young have been Tartt’s epic subjects as she creates one captivating and capacious novel a decade, from The Secret History (1992) to The Little Friend (2002) to this feverish saga. In the wake of his nefarious father’s abandonment, Theo, a smart, 13-year-old Manhattanite, is extremely close to his vivacious mother—until an act of terrorism catapults him into a dizzying world bereft of gravity, certainty, or love. Tartt writes from Theo’s point of view with fierce exactitude and magnetic emotion as, stricken with grief and post-traumatic stress syndrome, he seeks sanctuary with a troubled Park Avenue family and, in Greenwich Village, with a kind and gifted restorer of antique furniture. Fate then delivers Theo to utterly alien Las Vegas, where he meets young outlaw Boris. As Theo becomes a complexly damaged adult, Tartt, in a boa constrictor-like plot, pulls him deeply into the shadow lands of art, lashed to seventeenth-century Dutch artist Carel Fabritius and his exquisite if sinister painting, The Goldfinch. Drenched in sensory detail, infused with Theo’s churning thoughts and feelings, sparked by nimble dialogue, and propelled by escalating cosmic angst and thriller action, Tartt’s trenchant, defiant, engrossing, and rocketing novel conducts a grand inquiry into the mystery and sorrow of survival, beauty and obsession, and the promise of art.HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: Word of best-selling Tartt’s eagerly awaited third novel will travel fast and far via an author tour, interviews, and intense print, media, and online publicity. --Donna Seaman

Review

"Dazzling....[A] glorious, Dickensian novel, a novel that pulls together all Ms. Tartt's remarkable storytelling talents into a rapturous, symphonic whole and reminds the reader of the immersive, stay-up-all-night pleasures of reading."

―Michiko Kakutani, New York Times

"The Goldfinch is a rarity that comes along perhaps half a dozen times per decade, a smartly written literary novel that connects with the heart as well as the mind....Donna Tartt has delivered an extraordinary work of fiction."―Stephen King, The New York Times Book Review

"The Goldfinch is a book about art in all its forms, and right from the start we remember why we enjoy Donna Tartt so much: the humming plot and elegant prose; the living, breathing characters; the perfectly captured settings....Joy and sorrow exist in the same breath, and by the end The Goldfinch hangs in our stolen heart."―Vanity Fair

"A long-awaited, elegant meditation on love, memory, and the haunting power of art....Eloquent and assured, with memorable characters....A standout-and well-worth the wait."

―Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"It's a classic...If you haven't read it, read it. If you have, read it again."

―Andy Cohen, Today Show

"Where to begin? Simply put, I'm indescribably jealous of any reader picking up this masterpiece for the first time. And once they do, they will long remember the heartrending character of Theo Decker and his unthinkable journey."―Sarah Jessica Parker for Goop

"A soaring masterpiece."

―Ron Charles, Washington Post

About the Author

Donna Tartt is the author of The Goldfinch, which was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, as well as the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction. Her novels The Secret History and The Little Friend have been translated into 30 languages. She was born in Greenwood, Mississippi and is a graduate of Bennington College.

Item Weight : 2.4 pounds
Hardcover : 775 pages
ISBN-10 : 9780316055437
ISBN-13 : 978-0316055437
Publisher : Little, Brown and Company; 1st Edition (October 22, 2013)
Product Dimensions : 6.55 x 1.9 x 9.65 inches
Language: : English
ASIN : 0316055433

Best-sellers rank #28,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#18 in LGBT Family Life Fiction (Books)
#22 in LGBT Coming of Age Fiction (Books)
#47 in LGBT Literary Fiction (Books)

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Nana Eileen

I thought it would never end.

Reviewed in the United States on June 23, 2018

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I don't understand why this book is so highly rated. I belong to a small book club that chose to read it adn 4 out of 6 give up on it. Those that finished were very frustrated. Not only was this book too long, it was unbelievable due insufficient character development. Things just sort of happened around people and they "changed" (not evolved) from chapter to chapter. There are many books I've not liked, but I have this crazy need to stick it out and finish anything I start. This is the first book in decades I gave up on. That should sum it up.

596 people found this helpful

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Javi

I don't understand the hype

Reviewed in the United States on April 23, 2019

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I just couldn't get into it. The sentences, paragraphs, passages... all just SO incredibly long. Theres a fine line between descriptive and excessive. This book is the latter. Everything just went on and on. Sentences so run-on they need track shoes.
So I sat there, my mind designing this foster of a thought while I laid comfortably on the grey, semi-soft couch I bought once on sale on a Tuesday evening at a Rooms-to-Go, realizing that my life had taken a turn for, quite possibly, the worst, and wondering if I would ever reach the long-crying light at the end of the tunnel that is this pretentious book.
See- that was MISERABLE to read. Don't do that. I'm sorry I did that. You've actually got to get to the point sometimes. Plus, I got halfway through and I felt as if nothing happened. I understand that this is a "realistic" book and may even be an eye-opener for some, but I just found the story profoundly boring, or dare I say it, lame. She could have composed a much more compelling story with such an interesting background and plot. After all, it is the plot that attracted us all in the first place, isn't it? I'm sorry to say that this book is overrated and like I said, pretentious.

346 people found this helpful

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STL Cards Fan

Spend your time somewhere else!

Reviewed in the United States on November 26, 2017

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I did not want to be one of those people who did not finish this book yet still trashed it. I did finish the book and I can tell you that there was not anything I can say I found enjoyable about it. I have made it a goal to read at least one Pulitzer Prize winning book each year. I believe the reason this book won in 2014 was that Donna Tartt was obviously knowledgable about the drug culture and the art world. There was not a single character that I cared about by the end of the book.

396 people found this helpful

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Judy Hottmann

Did not like

Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2017

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I did not like this book at all. All the drug, booze, swearing was just too much for me to overlook. Perhaps there is an element of society that lives this kind of life, but I really didn't enjoy reading about it. The dishonesty of most characters was so out of my comfort level.

303 people found this helpful

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Annie Athens

Brilliant, True Literature.

Reviewed in the United States on November 6, 2017

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I bought The Little Friend some years back and thought it was an excellent book, lent it to friends that also enjoyed. When I saw that she had won the Booker Prize I immediately thought to buy the book for my Kindle. Sadly I didn't, as I read so many poor reviews. too long, boring, heavy etc etc Then just recently a friend told me that she had bought the book and loved it and passed it on to other friends so I downloaded it straight away.
The writing is superb, cannot understand the complaints, this is literature at it's best. It's not meant to be a fast read, take it slowly, yes it's a long book, so what, it's virtually three books for the price of one. It's a hard story, showing us that the affects of terrorism on those that are involved and those that lose loved ones. It also opens our minds to the fact that there is both good and evil in all of us and cowardice and bravery. The characters in the story are the best portrayals that I have read for years. Miss Tartt doesn't churn books out one after the other as so many authors, they are gems, to be read and not forgotten. I sincerely hope that this becomes a modern classic because it certainly deserves it.

226 people found this helpful

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Anne Burns

Don’t waste your time

Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2019

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I HATED this book! The author is a good writer, but an awful storyteller. Even if the book had been shortened by 400 pages (this could easily have been done), the characters were so unlikable. The main character just continues to make bad choice after bad choice, with absolutely no appreciation for anything good in his life. There were opportunities for redemption, and I’m not sure why the author did not pursue them. I cannot fathom how she could have been compared to Charles Dickens. His characters were noble and continued to grow throughout his stories. Hers, on the other hand, continued to get wasted, and spent a fair amount of time vomiting. There was nothing redeeming about this book at all and I’m just mad at myself for wasting my time.

148 people found this helpful

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SouthernGal820

A Great Story from Beginning to End

Reviewed in the United States on November 5, 2017

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This book held me spellbound from beginning to end. I didn't want to finish it but I couldn't wait to finish it to know the ending! The light for me in this dark story was Boris...his character was broken and a little scary yet he was such a strong character and had a loyalty and love for Theo the best he could given his circumstances. Even though Theo was truly the main character, Boris and Hobie were my favorites and the most dimensional for me. This is the only Donna Tartt book I have read but it was exceptional, the feelings it could evoke through the things that happened, how Theo waited for his Mom to come back to the apartment, the happiness when Boris was on the floor with Popper and he was so happy Popper remembered who he was...I felt like I was there with the characters and that's quite an accomplishment. Loved this book.

177 people found this helpful

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perko

Epic!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2019

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This is an epic novel in every sense of the word. I cannot remember the last time that I could not put a book down, even returning to it in the middle of the night when I should have been sleeping. It is one of those books that drew me in right from the start and I just had to find out what happened to Theo and those around him, even when he sunk to the depths with seemingly no prospect of rising again. The painting, that painting, the events surrounding it and its place in Theo's life are traced effectively throughout the book, almost to the point of just when I had forgotten about it because of other events, Donna Tartt brings it back to the forefront of the narrative. This is not a 'literary' review, it is a genuine response to this novel from a keen and avid reader who first picked up a book to read for pleasure over 50 years or so ago and I am delighted to say that I am still being moved and challenged by the imagination of others and, in the case of The Goldfinch, I am now left wondering what I can possibly read next to take the memory of this rich seam of characters out of my head. What Donna Tartt does so well is to juggle the cast so effectively - some of who we meet only fleetingly, but they all seem to make an impression and are there to drive the narrative forward - that they pivot around the central presence of Theo to provide a highly satisfactory narrative that was, for me, totally engaging. It was hard to read at times, not because of the writing, but because of the unfolding events, but, ultimately, it moved me, angered me, delighted me, made me smile, made me cry and just made me want to be a better human being - be a Hobie, in fact.

66 people found this helpful

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HappyMum

Frustratingly slow and yet spellbindingly brilliant.....

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 7, 2019

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My introduction to Donna Tartt was A Secret History - a beautifully crafted novel of friendship and secrets which I devoured in mere hours. I then bought The Little Friend - still haven't finished it. It was as slow and dull as the town it's set in. Maybe that was the point, it's certainly "atmospheric". The Goldfinch falls between the two. Brilliant premise, and the start of the book is gripping. But there were times I couldn't wait to get to the end of the chapter so I could put the book down and take a break from it in the hope that when I started the next chapter the story might pick up again. It's rare I don't finish a book but much of the time I ploughed on through this just to get the pages out of the way rather than reading for pleasure. The main character is flawed and damaged and selfish but that's understandable given his childhood experiences - great characters are always shades of light and dark. And Theo is a great character. Perhaps the issue is that many of the others in comparison are just caricatures - charismatic Eastern European on the wrong side of the law, damaged and vulnerable unattainable love interest, distant disinterested grasping dad. The final rambling chapter that beats you over the head with the books life lessons (just in case you were too dumb to get the message from the story) was pretty patronising. If you like a novel crafted with skill, that has brilliantly drawn characters, is written using words with more than two syllables and drags you into its pages until its final shocking denouement, try We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver instead.

23 people found this helpful

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Four Violets

Over long but brilliant

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 18, 2018

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Brilliantly written book about Theo, who at 13 is forced through tragic circumstances to go and live with the Barbour family in New York.
A modern story which starts minutely detailed and vividly seen by the author, so we see it too, the nuances of the Barbour family life, parents and four children, of whom Andy is Theo’s friend, a “white mouse” with a “wan, irritating voice” who has a hilarious line of repartee with his father who is eternally trying to interest his indifferent children in sailing.
Other stand-out characters are Hobie who befriends Theo, and Boris, Theo’s wild, unpredictable friend who runs wild with him in Las Vegas. A few sentences and we have them, a real person, fixed, Mr Silver the debt collector, the doormen.
If only the book had been a quarter or even a third shorter. After the words “eight years later” things change, as if the author is tired of her creations and gallops through the rest, impossibly convoluted and contrived plot and all the Dickensian/J K Rowling characters we have come to love becoming caricatures, less true and solid. Pippa, always vague, slips away completely, and even Boris’s English, so funny to start with, become cartoon-like.
There are themes and metaphors bursting out all over, meandering, fathers and sons, abandonment, the pointlessness or otherwise of life struggles etc etc, and of course acres about ART and the meaning of the painting of the goldfinch, which is, after all, a painting of a bird chained up.

18 people found this helpful

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Wennel

Superb new writer

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 21, 2015

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I just don't understand why all the other reviewers didn't give this novel five stars too. To start with the writing is flawless, the characters are wonderfully real and the plot and subplots gripping. I am sometimes an impatient reader and want to see what happens, skipping and scanning though stories. Not here. I want to savor each and every sentence, just as Tartt does; you can just tell she relishes every word she writes and places them impeccably in the right places. The depth and breadth of her knowledge is amazing. This novel is a symphony of people, places and happenings. I am loving every page and am now more than half way to the end. It is one of those books I don't want to end. I look forward to more from Donna Tartt.

54 people found this helpful

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SnippetMaster

Good but not great

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 16, 2017

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It's a very well written book but much like The Secret History it certainly didn't blow me away. Why not - because it's just a story of life, nothing amazing about it. The characters are rich and the plot is unique I guess, but I still finished it feeling "so what....". Sorry, she's an amazing writer but her plots just aren't for me. Then again, I don't think they are aimed at 46 year old men anyway!

21 people found this helpful

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