Genre: Contemporary Adult Fiction
Length: 771 pages
Audiobook Length: 32 hours and 24 minutes
First Published: 2015
View in Goodreads
Buy on Amazon
Publisher’s Description
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 his 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 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.
Quotes from The Goldfinch
I had the epiphany that laughter was light, and light was laughter, and that this was the secret of the universe.
Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty?
Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you.
You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life.
Sometimes we want what we want even if we know it’s going to kill us.
Movie Trailer for The Goldfinch (2019)
About Donna Tartt
Donna Tartt is an American writer who received acclaim for her first two novels, The Secret History and The Little Friend. Her book The Goldfinch won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. She lives in Virginia and New York City.