In addition, her short story “The Ambush” was included in the anthology Best American Short Stories 2006. Tartt won the WH Smith Literary Award for The Little Friend and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Goldfinch. “ Is delicious.Included in TIME magazine’s “100 Most Influential People” list in 2014, Tartt has authored only three novels, each of them lauded by critics and general readers alike: The Secret History, The Little Friend, and The Goldfinch. “Ah, marvelous,” he said, for the fifteenth time, practically purring, as the pretty young waitress brought out an extra plate of candies and biscotti with the coffee. It was by leaps and fathoms the best meal I’d eaten in months, or maybe ever and Boris- who’d eaten two orders of the sable all by himself- was ecstatic.

We ate asparagus flan with shallot vinaigrette smoked salmon smoked sable carpaccio perciatelli with cardoons and black truffles crispy black bass with saffron and fava beans barbecued skirt steak braised short ribs and panna cotta, pumpkin cake, and fig ice cream for dessert. “Order what you like, everyone,” he said, pulling out Xandra’s chair for her. My dad had made reservations for us at a fancy, oak-panelled Italian restaurant-the outpost of its more famous sister restaurant in New York. Boris and I trailed along uneasily, feeling shabby, scuffing our shoes, too stunned to take it all in. Inside the Venetian, gondoliers propelled themselves down a real canal, with real, chemical-smelling water, as costumed opera singers sang Stille Nacht and Ave Maria under artificial skies. Waterfalls of neon, electricity blazing and pulsing and cascading down in bubbles all around us, Boris’s upturned face glowing red and then gold in the crazy drench of lights.

I go back through the past too, only looking for signs, you know? Things I should have picked up on, but missed?” “ Listen, you’re When she’s trying to figure out whether her memories belong to her or Tyrell’s niece. I think about Tyrell’s niece a lot.” “What do you mean?” “That scene where’s she’s looking at the pictures on the piano.

When people asked me what I wanted to be, I’d usually be a smart ass and say I wanted to be a blade runner or something like that.” “God, I’m so haunted by that movie. I didn’t have a talent.” “ What’d you do for fun?” “Nothing that interesting. “I can’t even imagine.” “Yeah, but you must have an idea.” “I wasn’t like you. What do you think you would be doing now?” “I don’t know,” I said, a bit startled. Bad enough.” “ It’s weird to think-if it had never happened. All these tiny signs that I ignored, or didn’t fully recognize-everything could have been different if only I’d been paying attention-like, Welty was trying so hard to get me to go earlier, he must have asked a dozen times, it was like he had a sense of it himself, something bad going to happen, it was my fault we were even there that day-” “At least you hadn’t been expelled from school.” “ Were you expelled?” “ Suspended.

The goldfinch by donna tartt