This is the story of a boy who, in the aftermath of a terrorist attack on a museum, loses his mother, is entrusted with a secret: a priceless painting of a titular Goldfinch. We follow the boy across a wild life, always keeping this painting apart from every sort of home he moves to and from, the secret moulding his very being from boyhood to young man without his knowing.

I thought this was a 4 star, but I find myself thinking about this book every few days. Especially after finishing The Secret History. So, clearly it’s a 5.

What it feels like to me is Tartt manages to view her constructed characters from a different, elusive perspective. All I can really see is that everyone has a secret and their every movement and word orbits them, stemming from this opaque thing that becomes the Point of the novel.

It took me a while to finish this book. Similar to A Little Life, the most wonderful characters aren’t diamonds. They are fractured in the most unpredictable ways. Often defined by their trauma; willingly or unwillingly. Agency a push-pull tug-of-war with specificity that feels hyper realistic, fair, and vulnerable.

Of course, a literal explosion would fracture anyone. But the story is tracing every line until you finally run its center. The secret heart. Sometimes the dark room, or the locked room, or the room you never go into; a secret psychology of a character, somehow feels like an entire house and a puzzle and the inevitable, surprising ending set apart from the plot. If life is the plot, then Tartt manages to show you that, when compared to the intricacies and doomed brilliance of those struck by the hammer (which is everyone, to varying degrees), there’s not so much there as you think. So you may as well spend your time driving at the heart of the people around you.

Because shit, invariably, happens. On that you can absolutely count.