ALICE MUNRO C19 LESSONS FROM THE LAUREATE

C21 Fanfare books newsday.com/books After he filched the finch A boy navigates life after a museum blast explodes his world

finch” out of the museum under his coat. , by Donna Tartt. Little, Brown In the tradition of Tartt’s earlier novels, “The and Co.; 784 pp., $30. Secret History” (1992) and “The Little Friend” (2002), “The Goldfinch” is a blue-black BY MARION WINIK bildungsroman, where loss and lies and unscru- Special to Newsday pulous people are as much a part of growing up as — oh, you know, drugs, alcohol and televi- hings would have turned out a sion. Like its predecessors, “The Goldfinch” is whole lot better if she had lived,” long — the longest yet at 784 pages — but the observes Theo Decker, the suspense about what will happen to the paint- ‘T narrator of Donna Tartt’s ing, combined with the irresistibility of Theo’s long-awaited third novel, “The persona, makes it fly. It’s like seeing a psycholog- Goldfinch.” This understatement sets the tone ical horror movie in a plush, exquisitely decorat- for Theo’s harrowing yet exhilarating account ed theater with the smartest, wittiest person of the troubles that have plagued his life for the you know. In this regard Tartt, like her contem- past 14 years, since the morning he and his porary A.M. Homes (“May We Be Forgiven”), is mother made a side trip into the Metropolitan a pitiless, powerful and somehow unmistakably Museum of Art on their way to a disciplinary feminine breed of moral philosopher-cum-novel- Donna Tartt meeting at his private school. ist, graciously showing us how comfortably On a quick tour of his mother’s favorites, they appointed and hospitable hell can be. stop to take a look at the painting she Some of the finer appointments of “The Gold- says is the first she ever loved. It is finch” are its perfectly drawn settings — first, “The Goldfinch,” a 1634 Park Avenue, where Theo, after his mother’s masterpiece by Carel Fabri- death, goes to live with the society family of a tius. Theo’s classmate. Just as he is angling to mother explains get invited on the Barbours’ sum- that it is one of mer vacation, his long-lost father very few surviv- appears and drags him off to Las ing examples of Vegas. This is not the Las Vegas of the artist’s work, casinos and neon, but of empty, as he was killed in indistinguishable suburbs called an explosion of Pueblo Breeze, Canyon Shadows the gunpow- and Ghost Ridge, places where it der facility that makes perfect sense to become a destroyed a quar- teenage alcoholic. Theo’s guide into ter of the city, afternoon oblivion is a 15-year-old along with his kid named Boris, who is “mostly studio. from Australia, Russia and Minutes later, Ukraine.” “Long-haired, narrow the museum ex- chested, weedy and thin, he was Yul plodes in a terror- Brynner’s exact opposite in most ist bombing. “[T]here was a respects and yet there also was an odd familial newsday.com black flash, with debris sweep- resemblance: they had the same sly, watchful ing and twisting around me, quality, amused and a bit cruel, something Mon- and a roar of hot wind gol or Tatar in the slant of the eyes.” slammed into me and threw Boris has done it all, even had actual sex with

me across the room. And that an actual girl in a convenience store parking lot 2013 20, OCTOBER SUNDAY, NEWSDAY, was the last thing I knew for a in Alaska. “I don’t think she liked it very much,” while.” he confesses. When Theo awakens, he can’t “Did you like it?” Theo wonders. find his mother or the pretty girl “God, yes. Although I’m telling you, I know I he was just gazing at, but he does wasn’t doing it right. I think [it] was too find the man he assumed was her cramped in the car.” grandfather, trapped under some debris. Tartt’s characters are her greatest treasure: In a rambling conversation before he Hobie, Pippa, Xandra, both of Theo’s parents, the dies, the man gives Theo a ring, as well Barbours, and incredible Popchik (a dog). Let as some confusing instructions that them lead you like a band of pirates through the turn out to be of critical importance. slightly-too-pumped-up action climax to the But first, yet another example of gorgeous rhetorical denouement. Though Tartt’s ’ work is about to “Goldfinch” may not make as deep an impression disappear; for reasons he can’t quite on history as Fabritius’ “Goldfinch,” it is a beauti-

PHOTO BY BEOWULF SHEEHAN explain, Theo carries “The Gold- ful, painful, unexpectedly uplifting work of art.