The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
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The Goldfinch Book Description
- Novel: The Goldfinch
- Published: September 23, 2013
- Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
- ISBN: 9781408704950
- Years to write: 11
- Pages: 771
- Average words per day: 70
The author of the classic bestsellers The Secret History and The Little Friend returns with a brilliant, highly anticipated new novel.
A young boy in New York City, Theo Decker, miraculously survives an accident that takes the life of his mother. Alone and abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by a friend's family and struggles to make sense of his new life. In the years that follow, he becomes entranced by one of the few things that reminds him of his mother: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the art underworld.
Composed with the skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America, and a drama of almost unbearable acuity and power. It is a story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the enormous power of art.
The Goldfinch wins
the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction!
What were you doing when you received the news that you won the Pulitzer for The Goldfinch back in 2014?
I'd been walking my dog, and when I came back in muddy and cold, I could hear shouting upstairs and every phone in the house was ringing. I was in a bit of shock. You don't know that you are even being considered, and when the news arrived it was a thunderbolt. I stood around shivering in wet clothes, taking call after call until finally I went away to a bath. I remember the moment I slipped under the water, with the phones still ringing downstairs: only then did it sink in what had happened.
Donna Tartt, the writing life. (2021, June 25). Grazia d'Annunzio. rivistastudio.com. https://www.rivistastudio.com/donna-tartt-intervista/
I began writing this book 20 years ago when I was in Amsterdam — some of the early parts of the book were written in Amsterdam as long ago as 1993. And then, I've lived in New York on and off since 1987. As far as I can tell, from looking back at old notebooks, the book really began with a dark Amsterdam mood, a dark New York mood — contrast between high and low, Europe and America, poverty and wealth, Upper East Side and Lower East Side. But it's really impossible to say exactly what came first, as when I first started writing I didn't actually know I was writing a novel. Many different elements combined unexpectedly in just the right way.
Q&A: Donna Tartt on 'The Goldfinch'. (2013, October 27). Kevin Nance. Chicago Tribune. https://www.chicagotribune.com/entertainment/books/ct-prj-1027-goldfinch-donna-tartt-20131027-story.html
Book Details
Hardcover: 608 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company (October 22, 2013)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0316055433
ISBN-13: 978-0316055437
Available in: Hardcover, Kindle, Audio, CD, Audiobook, Unabridged
Comments
i am still reading The Goldfinch. i am reading it slowly, savoring each long gorgeous sentence. this is some of the most beautiful descriptive language i've ever immersed myself within. THANK YOU.It was lush & gorgeous but The Secret History will always be my first love...
The Goldfinch will forever be a musical book to me. There are songs that I cannot separate from my experience of reading this book.