The Goldfinch

From Judy Kennedy:  THE GOLDFINCH by Donna Tartt, just published and weighing in at 800+ pages — a real reader’s read that’s been called “Dickensian in scope and tone” and is on all of the critic’s lists as one of the Top Ten books of the year.  It fact it was #1 on one of the NYTimes regular book reviewers list, and I think #1 on one of the New Yorker’s lists as well.  It’s the story of a 14 year old in NYC who is “orphaned” by a father who just up and leaves and a mother’s subsequent death at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where she and our hero have gone to see the the painting of “The Goldfinch” (an exquisite  Dutch masterpiece that I had never heard of but which exists and has a wonderful back story).  A terrorist bomb goes off in the gallery that houses “The Goldfinch” while they are there, killing the mother, and through a totally credible but extraordinary experience doesn’t touch our hero who ends up walking out of the rubble with the painting in hand with the sole purpose of saving it.  And thus begins a tale of life, romance, friendship, crime, and salvation . . .  Editor’s note:  Do not get this in audible form.  It is some 33 hours of awful!