The Goldfinch

Donna Tartt’s 2013 novel, The Goldfinch, was a national best seller and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2014. It follows the life of Theo Decker from his early teens into his late twenties. The novel is told in five parts and begins when Theo is hiding out in a hotel room in Amsterdam as an adult. It moves back in time and finally makes a circle back to his adulthood, explaining the reason for his stay there.

As a 13-year-old, Theo lives with his mother, Audrey, in an apartment on the East Side of New York. His alcoholic and distant father, Larry, has recently left the family and moved to Las Vegas. One morning, Theo and Audrey go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on their way to a meeting at Theo’s school in response to his misbehavior. Audrey takes Theo to an exhibit on the Dutch Masters and shows him a painting by Carel Fabritius, The Goldfinch. Later, Theo is captivated by a red-haired girl, Pippa, who is with an older man, Welty, in the gallery. When Audrey leaves to look at another exhibit, Theo follows Pippa. Just then, a bomb goes off, killing Audrey and knocking Theo out. Upon waking, Theo talks to the injured and partially delirious Welty, who instructs him to take The Goldfinch and also gives Theo a signet ring and the instruction to go to Hobart and Blackwell, an antique shop.

Theo takes the painting and returns home. He eventually meets with social workers who inform him of Audrey’s death and bring him to live with the Barbours, a wealthy family on Park Avenue, whose son, Andy, is a friend of Theo’s. Theo lives with them for several months, during which time he keeps the painting hidden. He goes to Hobart and Blackwell in the East Village and meets Hobie, Welty’s partner. He also visits Pippa, who has suffered a brain injury in the bomb. He continues to go to shop and develops a close friendship with Hobie as he learns the trade of restoring antique furniture.

Theo’s father, Larry, arrives from Las Vegas with his girlfriend, Xandra, and they take Theo to live with them. Larry and Xandra are distant and frequently abuse drugs, and Theo becomes close friends with another teenager, Boris. The two spend all of their time together, watching movies, stealing, drinking, and taking drugs. Though the novel does not reveal it at the time, Theo blacks out one night and shows The Goldfinch to Boris, who steals it and replaces it with a textbook inside complex wrappings. Theo does not notice it until years later.

Larry dies in a car accident, and Theo returns to New York on his own to avoid social services. He takes Xandra’s dog, Popper, and what he believes to be The Goldfinch. He shows up at Hobart and Blackwell, and Hobie takes him in. He keeps The Goldfinch in a storage space, never opening the packaging.

By the time he is in his early twenties, Theo is a partner at Hobart and Blackwell, running the business side of things while Hobie restores furniture. In order to get the shop out of debt, Theo has turned to the illegal practice of selling fake pieces as the genuine object. A client named Lucius Reeve threatens to expose Theo and also reveals that he knows Theo has stolen The Goldfinch.

Boris shows up in New York one day and reveals that he stole The Goldfinch and has been using it as collateral in his illegal dealings. As a result, he has acquired wealth and wants to make it up to Theo. At this point, one of Boris’s colleagues has stolen the painting, and Boris believes it to be in Amsterdam. He hatches a plot to get it back and insists that Theo accompany him. Though they briefly recapture the painting, hitmen take it away from them during a shooting match in which Boris kills one man and Theo kills another.

At this point, the novel comes full circle, and Theo hides out in his hotel room after the shooting, not knowing what to do. After a week, Boris arrives and reveals that he has called the art police and told them the location of The Goldfinch, and they reward him handsomely for it. He shares the money with Theo, who goes back to New York. He reveals everything to Hobie and spends the next year buying back all the fake pieces he has sold.