The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

Over and over, I kept thinking I’ve got to go home and then, for the millionth time, I can’t.

There had been nights in the desert where I was so sick with laughter, convulsed and doubled over with aching stomach for hours on end, I would happily have thrown myself in front of a car to make it stop.

me—oh, wow, listen, they’re playing ‘Comfy in Nautica,’ do you hear that? Panda Bear! I totally forgot that album.

Let's goooooo

Only here’s what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can’t be trusted—? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight towards a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?