The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt · b. 1963 · USA

Why it matters

A boy survives the terrorist bombing that kills his mother by walking out of the museum with a small Dutch masterpiece hidden in his coat, and carries both the painting and the guilt through a decade of drift. Tartt's Pulitzer winner is maximalist, Dickensian storytelling for the twenty-first century.

At a glance

Long and digressive but propulsively plotted, with clear, immersive prose throughout.