Booktopia’s Editorial Director Caroline Baum interviewed Donna Tartt for Fairfax papers over the weekend. Here’s a glimpse of the wonderful article, don’t forget to click below to see the whole thing.

Don’t expect to find Donna Tartt on Twitter or Facebook. The author who became a recluse following the hype about her 1992 debut, The Secret History, at the age of 28, remains as private and enigmatic as ever. It’s been a decade since she last gave interviews about her second novel, The Little Friend. Websites buzzed with rumours of subject matter and slipped deadlines but Tartt remained off the radar, earning inevitable comparisons to Salinger and Pynchon.

Although she has agreed to a few interviews to promote her new novel, The Goldfinch, Tartt does not enjoy the process any more than when she found herself in the spotlight for her stylish, slightly mannish wardrobe and cool friends (including Bret Easton Ellis, whom she briefly dated) as much as her poised and polished prose.

When we speak by phone Tartt is in Manhattan, though she spends much of her time at her farm in Virginia, where she writes in the company of her Boston terrier, Punch. “Everything is improved by the presence of a dog,” she says.

It is 8am but Tartt announces cheerfully she has been up for hours and mentions it is Fashion Week in New York. Clearly her love affair with clothes has not abated. “Vintage is still my thing but it is much harder to find, though I just bought a Japanese embroidered coat at a flea market.”

Check out the rest of the article here.

The Goldfinch

by Donna Tartt

Donna Tartt, author of the phenomenal bestsellers The Secret History and The Little Friend, returns with a breathtaking new novel.

Aged thirteen, Theo Decker, son of a devoted mother and a reckless, largely absent father, survives an accident that otherwise tears his life apart. Alone and rudderless in New York, he is taken in by the family of a wealthy friend. He is tormented by an unbearable longing for his mother, and down the years clings to one thing that reminds him of her: a small, strangely captivating painting that ultimately draws him into the criminal underworld. As he grows up, Theo learns to glide between the drawing rooms of the rich and the dusty antiques store where he works. He is alienated and in love – and his talisman, the painting, places him at the centre of a narrowing, ever more dangerous circle.

The Goldfinch is a haunted odyssey through present-day America and a drama of enthralling power. Combining unforgettably vivid characters and thrilling suspense, it is a beautiful, addictive triumph – a sweeping story of loss and obsession, of survival and self-invention, of the deepest mysteries of love, identity and fate.

Click here to buy The Goldfinch from Booktopia,
Australia’s Local Bookstore

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About the Contributor

Andrew Cattanach

Andrew Cattanach is a regular contributor to The Booktopia Blog. He has been shortlisted for The Age Short Story Prize and was named a finalist for the 2015 Young Bookseller of the Year Award. He enjoys reading, writing and sleeping, though finds it difficult to do them all at once.

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