THE GOLDFINCH is a novel of shocking narrative energy and power, an old-fashioned story of loss and obsession, survival and self-invention, and the ruthless machinations of fate.

Under the influence of a charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at a New England college discover a way of thought and life a world away from their banal contemporaries. But their search for the transcendent leads them down a dangerous path, beyond human constructs of morality.