The Nightengale

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.

It begins with Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker who, miraculously survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.

As an adult, Theo moves easily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love - and at the center of a narrowing, ever-more-dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch combines unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking suspense, while plumbing the deepest mysteries of love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.