White Oleander - Janet Fitch [0]
Excerpt from Paint It Black copyright © 2006 by Janet Fitch
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.
Back Bay Books/Little, Brown and Company
Hachette Book Group USA
237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroupUSA.com
Originally published in hardcover by Little, Brown and Company, April 1999
The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
An excerpt of this novel was previously published in Black Warrior Review.
The interview with Janet Fitch in the reading group guide at the back of this book is excerpted from an article that first appeared in Salon.com, at http://www.Salon.com. An online version remains in the Salon archives. Reprinted with permission.
ISBN: 978-0-7595-6817-4
First eBook Edition: June 2008
Contents
Extraordinary acclaim for Janet Fitch’s
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
White Oleander
About the Author
A Preview of "Paint It Black"
Extraordinary acclaim for Janet Fitch’s
WHITE OLEANDER
“Quite simply, White Oleander is amazing. It’s the kind of book you don’t want to put down. It’s full-blooded, alive, breathtaking, frightening. . . . This incredible novel is the story of what it is to be extraordinary women.”
— Rohana Chomick, Tampa Tribune-Times
“White Oleander is likely the best debut this reviewer has ever read.... Heartbreaking, but without a trace of sentimentality, it provokes amazement.”
— Judith Kicinski, Library Journal (starred review)
“White Oleander is just what the title promises — a tale of poisonous beauty, dangerous, heady scents, an unforgettable story of a young girl growing up. . . . Its narrator is part poet, part seductress, part Scheherazade, part street punk. . . . Long after the book has ended, you’ll feel the hot breeze of this novel scorched in your memory, lingering in your heart.”
— Susan Larson, New Orleans Times-Picayune
“As a character, Astrid falls between the innocent lambs some imagine children to be and the great female survivors of literature: as resilient as Moll Flanders, as necessarily selfish as Thackeray’s Becky Sharp.”
— Chris Waddington, Minneapolis Star Tribune
“There’s nothing ordinary about Fitch’s debut. For starters, Ingrid and Astrid Magnussen are one of the most intriguing mother-daughter duos in recent fiction. . . . Fitch’s is a fresh, exotic, full-to-bursting voice, fitfully under control but never dull. Her characters are unusual, wildly imagined.”
— Jocelyn McClurg, Hartford Courant
“When we first came across this novel last month, we loved it and believed we had discovered the season’s best-kept secret.”
— Felicia Paik, Wall Street Journal
“White Oleander resonates with commitment to no other master than the art of storytelling itself.”
— Greg Burkman, Seattle Times
“Thoroughly enjoyable. . . . As Astrid develops into a powerful character in her own right, her desire for self-discovery and sheer will to survive drive the narrative. . . . Fitch’s hypnotic voice offers an honest and oddly seductive vision of L.A.”
— Deborah Picker, LA Weekly
“There may be no personal relationship more complicated than the one between a mother and her adolescent daughter. . . . Not surprisingly, there are also few personal relationships more difficult to write about well. Mona Simpson did it admirably in Anywhere But Here. Janet Fitch does it spectacularly in White Oleander.