《金翅雀》

“The Goldfinch” (2013) is the third novel by American author Donna Tartt, her first new book in 11 years. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2014 among other honors.

The novel is a coming-of-age story told in the first person by Theodore Decker.

Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously* survives an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned* by his father, he 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 longing for his mother, he clings to* the one thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that ultimately draws Decker into the underworld of art.

As an adult, he moves silkily 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.

It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession*, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations* of fate.

Warning: The book is long and challenging, with foreign languages quoted, and a depressed main character, who is not always easy to care about.

It’s available at online bookstores like jd.com.(SD-Agencies)