The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt Torrent

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It starts with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives an accident in which his mother was killed. Rejected by his father, Theon takes the family of a wealthy friend. Astonished by his strange new home on Park Avenue, upset by schoolmates who can’t talk to him, and especially tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, he grabs one thing that reminds him: a small, mysteriously charming painting that Theo eventually passes into the underworld.

As an adult, Theo moves to the side between the rich salons and the dusty maze of antiques in which he works. He is alienated and in love – in the middle of an ever-increasing circle.

Gold combines vibrant characters, enchanting language and excitement, while the serenity of philosophers mixes the deepest mysteries of love, identity and art. It is an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, and of the relentless machinations of fate.