Did
you stand a little taller, April 14, this past Monday? You should as a
Mississippian. Our very own Greenwood native, Donna Tartt, won the 2014
Pulitzer Prize for fiction with her third book The Goldfinch. The Pulitzer
website states the award is given, “for distinguished fiction by an American
author, preferably dealing with American life.”
From
the publisher Little Brown (since I have yet to read it), “Composed with the
skills of a master, The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present day
America and a drama of enthralling force and acuity.
It
begins with a boy. Theo Decker, a 13-year-old New Yorker, miraculously survives
an accident that kills his mother. Abandoned by his father, Theo is taken in by
the family of a wealthy friend. Bewildered by his strange new home on Park
Avenue, disturbed by schoolmates who don't know how to talk to him, and
tormented above all by his unbearable longing for his mother, he clings to one
thing that reminds him of her: a small, mysteriously captivating painting that
ultimately draws Theo into the underworld of art.
As
an adult, Theo moves silkily between the drawing rooms of the rich and the
dusty labyrinth of an antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in
love-and at the center of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.
The
Goldfinch is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power. It combines
unforgettably vivid characters, mesmerizing language, and breathtaking
suspense, while plumbing with a philosopher's calm the deepest mysteries of
love, identity, and art. It is a beautiful, stay-up-all-night and
tell-all-your-friends triumph, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession,
survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.”
High
praise comes from the Pulitzer jury who states, “It is a beautifully written
coming-of-age novel with exquisitely drawn characters that follows a grieving
boy’s entanglement with a small famous painting that has eluded destruction, a
book that stimulates the mind and touches the heart.”
Upon
hearing the news, Tartt said, “"I am incredibly happy and incredibly
honored and the only thing I am sorry about is that Willie Morris and Barry
Hannah aren't here. They would have loved this."
May
I say, we are “happy and incredibly honored” to have raised such a talented
Mississippian in Donna Tartt!
2 comments:
It's well-deserved. I loved the book.
I think her other one The Secret History is better, but The Goldfinch was a grand read!
Yay, Cipriano and howdy. Long time no hear! I cannot wait to get my hands on it!!!
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