Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

This is another book that has received a lot of rave reviews.  In this case the book lived up to my expectations.

The story starts with an explosion in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  A young boy, Theo, and his mother are visiting the gallery.  The boy's father, a drunk who beat the mother, had abandoned them several years before.  The boy and his mother have a very close relationship. She is very impressed with a painting of a Goldfinch, chained to a perch by a Dutch Master.

Just prior to the explosion his mother leaves him to go have another look at a particular painting, she tells him to go to the gift shop and she will meet him there.  However, Theo has been watching a young girl who is accompanied by an older man.   He has been following them rather than going to the gift shop.

When the explosion occurs Theo sees dead bodies and destruction everywhere.  However, he finds the old man still alive.  The old man tells him to take the painting of the goldfinch and also gives him a ring.  He also mentions a name, that sounds like a business name.  Theo stays with the old man until he dies, then he scoops up the painting and manages to wander his way through some back rooms in the gallery and get outside.  He stumbles home and waits for his mother to meet him there (their agreed upon plan should they get separated at any tiime).  But his mother does not return.

After a short time Theo recalls the name that the old man told him and goes to the address.  He is greeted at the door by a man who was the business partner of the old man.  They have an antiques/restoration business. He is delighted to meet the boy and get the old man's ring back.  The man invites him in and tells the boy that they young girl survived the explosion but was badly hurt, including some brain damage.

Eventually children's services people come to collect the boy.  His grandparents are contacted but claim that they are too  ill to care for him.  No one knows how to contact his father.  The boy contacts a childhood friend of his, from a wealthy family, and they agree to care for him in the short term.  The  friend's family is very happy to have him staying with them, the boy's brother and sister aren't so happy about it.  The father of the family has had some mental health issues, the mother is a socialite and do-gooder, but really seems to care for the welfare of her young guest.  The father is a sailing fanatic and wants his son (the boy's friend) to learn to sail, the boy is terrified of sailing.

Theo is quite happy living with this wealthy family.  However one day he returns to their apartment to find his father sitting waiting for him.  Theo doesn't want to go with him, but the father takes him to Las Vegas to live with him, his girlfriend and their dog (which they frequently neglect). The boy is very unhappy living with them, not only do they negelct the dog, they neglect him, leaving him alone with no food in the house.  He meets a Russian boy in his school.  The boy's father is an engineer who also isn't a good parent and who gets drunk and beats him on occasion.  The Russian boy is streetwise and they become friends, steal food  and get involved with drugs.  The Russian boy is quite manic.  He calls Theo "Popper" because of his Harry Potter glasses.  Sadly, Theo's father seems to have a better relationship with Boris than he does with Theo.

Theo's father is a gambler and has highs and lows.  One day a man arrives at the door asking for his father.  He tells Theo to tell his father that he will be back to collect on the father's bad debts.  The father tries to get the boy to free money from an education fund his mother had set up for him.  The father claims it is to help him start a restaurant.  He is lying, he wants the money to settle his debts.  However, the lawyer who handles his fund tells Theo he can't just take money out, it has to go to an educational institution.  He also warns him that someone had tried to get money from the fund previously.  Theo is furious at his father for trying to steal his education funds.

Shortly thereafter Theo's "stepmother" arrives home in tears telling him that his father has been killed in a car accident, it seems he was leaving town (without them).  Theo doesn't want to stay with the stepmother but doesn't know what to do.  He decides to return to New York.  Before he goes he takes some money from the house, some drugs and the dog and the goldfinch painting he took from the art gallery.

When he arrives in New York he is desperate and decides to go to visit the partner of the old man.  This gentleman welcomes him.  The boy contacts the lawyer who was handling his education fund and it is agreed that the older man can be his temporary guardian.  Theo helps the man with some of his restoration work. But he knows he needs to complete schooling so he works hard to get an early admission to college and completes his studies

When he is done he returns to New York and eventually becomes the informal business parter, running the store for the man, while he the old man works on restoration work in the basement.  Theo realizes the business is having financial difficulties as the old man would rather restore things than run the business.  Theo starts running the store and conducts some fraudulent sales to help the business recover financially.

One day a former client accuses Theo of having sold him a fake.  Theo offers to buy the item back but the man threatens to destroy Theo and his business partner.  Later the man returns to say he knows that Theo has the Goldfinch painting and he wants it, or else.  The boy is to attached to the painting to want to give it up, but he does feel guilty keeping it. How could this man get this info? This was not clear to me.

Theo evenutally confides what he has done regarding fraudulent sales to his business partner.  The man is sad and shocked and insists that he must contact all clients he has wronged and reimburse them.  Theo doesn't tell his partner the full extent of his crimes.

Why did he steal the painting?  He did it because the old man who he comforted in the museum told him to do it.  Why did he keep it?

"The painting had made me feel less mortal, less ordinary.  It was support and vindication... my whole life was balanced atop a secret that might at any moment blow apart".

Theo is tormented by memories of the explosion, the young girl is likewise tormented.  She has been cared for by an aunt and later sent to a school in Europe for "damanged" people.  He occasionally meets her when she comes to New York.  He is in love with her. But she is living in England and engaged to another man.

Theo eventually contacts the rich foster family.  He is shocked to learn that the father of the family and his friend died in a boating accident.  The father had had a nervous breakdown and was staying at a cottage to recover.  He was manic one day and his son went out with him sailing.  A storm arose and they drowned.  The family is glad to renew acquaintance with him.  The oldest brother is still a bum, the mother is a wreck, barely leaving her room.  The boy eventually realizing he can never have the girl he really loves, falls into an engagement with the daughter in the family.  She tells him they will make a good couple, but he hates her socialite lifestyle.

He contintes to use drugs, a holdover from his time in Las Vegas and his friendship with the Russian boy.  One day he is walking down the street and hears someone call his name.  It is his Russian firend, Boris. Boris.seems to have a lot of money and be involved with some illegal activities.   Boris admits that he actually stole the goldfinch painting from him and that what he has wrapped and in storage is just a textbook.
The painting has now become a pawn among some bad dudes.  Boris convices him to go to Amsterdam, assuring him they will be able to get the painting back easily.

Things don't go as planned, Theo ends up killing two people in an attack and then hiding out, ill, in an Amsterdam hotel.  He doesn't have his passport (Boris had it) so he can't leave the country.  He contemplates suicide.  However, eventually the ever optimisitic, fast-talking Boris arrives with a bag of money for him.  Boris tells him that the money is his share of the reward money.  Boris explainds that he and his colleagues had found where the painting was and alerted the authorities of the location.  The goldfinch and several other stolen artworks were found there.  As a result of reporting on the house they were entitled to a sizeable reward.  Theo's share of the reward money allows him to travel around the world to meet clients he has wronged and reimburse them.

This was a long story but a fascinating story.  The author did an incredible job of portaying all the characters, the passion, the despair.  Boris, the Russian, is an especially colourful character.  The author really portrayed this survivor, fast-talking, conman with humour and breathtaking detail.

The boy and girl in this book suffered a major trauma, like the character in the Vasquez book, but I felt more empathy for these characters and their ongoing trauma seemed more understandable than that of the Vasquez character.

This was a great book!  It kept my interest throughout.  Even though some of the characters and story line were really fantastic they were believable.