Donna Tartt, of The Secret History fame, set her third novel, The Goldfinch, partially in the Netherlands and the titular painting is a Dutch classic that (in real life) hangs in the Mauritshuis. Luckily, that’s enough of a connection for us to review it. 

The novel opens with the adult Theo Decker, hiding, alone in a hotel room in Amsterdam. The events leading to his arrival in the Dutch capital date to a decade earlier. En route to a school meeting with his mother, which then 13-year-old Theo believes will result in his suspension, the pair visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art to view his mother’s favorite painting, the Dutch Golden Age masterpiece The Goldfinch (Het Puttertje).

While in the museum, Theo spots a beautiful redheaded girl with whom he becomes instantly enamored. As they are leaving, his mother spontaneously decides to return to see The Goldfinch again and Theo heads off, ostensibly to the giftshop, but really to follow his new found love interest.

That decision will prove fateful. A bomb goes off in the gallery, killing a number of visitors, including his mother. Theo survives, and in the aftermath, grabs The Goldfinch from the floor. The rest of the novel will revolve around him keeping his theft a secret, and keeping the priceless artwork safe.

One of Tartt’s many strengths as an author is her ability to write a coming of age story that feels like an adult novel. Theo spends the book feeling the vivid and valid emotions of a teenager and young adult, but the work isn’t melodramatic or frustrating.

Part of the reason the work doesn’t feel childish is that much of it is told by the adult Theo reflecting back on his life. The reader discovers that Theo may not be a wholly reliable narrator. He doesn’t seem to be intentionally lying to us, rather Tartt sets the reader and Theo up. Through Theo we see one version of events, but through the people around him, we see another side.

Unlike many novels set in the Netherlands by non-Dutch authors, Tartt gets the Dutch stuff right. Amsterdam feels like Amsterdam, not a stereotyped veneer of Amsterdam. She does take liberty with the set up, though. The Goldfinch has never hung at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, its home is in the Mauritshuis in The Hague.

Coincidentally, when The Goldfinch was published, the Mauritshuis was undergoing a major, two-year renovation. Many of its famous works were part of a traveling exhibition, Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Hals: Masterpieces of Dutch Painting.

The Goldfinch (the book) and The Goldfinch (the painting) debuted on the same day. At every other stop of the tour, Johannes Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring was top billing. But the October 22nd opening at New York’s Frick Collection welcomed Tartt fans – it was the author’s first book in a decade – in droves.

“With The Goldfinch’s help, the exhibition has become the best attended in Frick history.” the museum said in a press release at the time. Neither the museum or the publisher were aware the other’s avian event was taking place.

Tartt’s first book, The Secret History, was a run away best seller. The Goldfinch won the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and was turned into a film starring Ansel Elgort.

At 771 pages, the Goldfinch is a hefty carry but you will be lugging it around. It’s addictive, brilliantly written and worth every word.

You can get your copy at the American Book Center.