A Long Way for Little Payoff in The Goldfinch


Donna Tartt’s 2014 bestselling behemoth (771 pages) The Goldfinch tracks the maturation of its main character Theo from age 13, when he’s visiting the Metropolitan Museum of Art with his mother. During their visit, a terrorist bomb detonates, killing her, and setting the path for the next dozen or so years of his life and the book.


At the museum, post-bomb, Theo encounters an older gentleman named “Welty” who dies in the attack, but first gives Theo a ring to return to his business partner “Hobie.” Theo also believes the man tells him to take a painting titled The Goldfinch, a 1654 work by Carel Fabritius, which he does. The painting acts as a last physical tether between Theo and his mom, which helps explain his dedication to it.

During the sprawling narrative that ensues, Theo, now a partial orphan because his father is a deadbeat, moves in with his school friend Andy Barbour. He befriends Hobie, and lives out a new reality without his mom that might just be okay, until dad shows up and moves him to Vegas. There he befriends a Ukrainian transplant named Boris who will become another close friend but also his partner in alcohol and drug experimentation, which leads to Theo’s later addiction to pain meds. His dad is at turns physically abusive, manic, or dismissive of Theo, until he dies in a car crash. Theo returns to New York, moves in with Hobie, and becomes his business partner in his antique furniture shop.

Theo’s journey continues from here in a story that feels much longer than needed. Did we need to read the details of how he got from an engagement party to the airport to travel to Europe, in order to reclaim The Goldfinch, which it turns out Boris stole? Couldn’t Tartt summarize those moments, and tell us the juicy bits contained therein in a faster, less verbose way? Yes, she could. By the end, Tartt all but abandons all character interaction, which had been some of the best parts of the book, and leaves us with many chapters of Theo musing about his experiences.

Tartt’s passages can be encompassing, like sinking into a hot bath. They’re filled with lush descriptions that delight the senses. They’re so good a reader might keep going just to read more of them. But a reader might also be asking, so what, as they wait for a payoff to the long journey, a payoff that never seems to happen.  

Thank you to Kristen Sacco for recommending The Goldfinch. 

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