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Summary
Summary
From the bestselling author of White Oleander comes a powerful story of passion, first love, and a young woman's search for a true world in the aftermath of loss.
Summary
Josie Tyrell, art model, runaway, and denizen of LA's rock scene finds a chance at real love with Michael Faraday, a Harvard dropout and son of a renowned pianist. But when she receives a call from the coroner, asking her to identify her lover's body, her bright dreams all turn to black.
As Josie struggles to understand Michael's death and to hold onto the world they shared, she is both attracted to and repelled by his pianist mother, Meredith, who blames Josie for her son's torment. Soon the two women are drawn into a twisted relationship that reflects equal parts distrust and blind need. With the luxurious prose and fever pitch intensity that are her hallmarks, Janet Fitch weaves a spellbinding tale of love, betrayal, and the possibility of transcendence.
"A dark, crooked beauty that fulfills all the promise of White Oleander and confirms that Janet Fitch is an artist of the very highest order."- Los Angeles Times Book Review
"Lushly written, dramatically plotted. . . Fitch's Los Angeles is so real it breathes."- Atlantic Monthly
"There is nothing less than a stellar sentence in this novel. Fitch's emotional honesty recalls the work of Joyce Carol Oates, her strychnine sentences the prose of Paula Fox."- Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A page-turning psychodrama. . . . Fitch's prose penetrates the inner lives of [her characters] with immediacy and bite."- Publishers Weekly
"Fitch wonderfully captures the abrasive appeal of punk music, the bohemian, sometimes squalid lifestyle, the performers, the drugs, the alienation. This is crackling fresh stuff you don't read every day."- USA Today
"In dysfunctional family narratives, Fitch is to fiction what Eugene O'Neill is to drama."- Chicago Sun-Times
"Riveting. . . . An uncommonly accomplished page-turner."- Elle
Author Notes
Janet Fitch 's first novel, White Oleander , a #1 bestseller and Oprah's Book Club selection, has been translated into twenty-eight languages and was made into a feature film. Her second novel, Paint It Black , hit bestseller lists across the country and has also been made into a film. Her third novel, The Revolution of Marina M. , begins an epic journey through the Russian Revolution, which concludes with Chimes of a Lost Cathedral . She lives with her husband in Los Angeles.
Reviews (3)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Fitch follows her bestselling debut, White Oleander, by revisiting the insidious effects of a powerful, narcissistic mother on an only child. Michael Faraday is a Harvard dropout who paints in the L.A. art world of 1981; his suicide happens a few pages in, and sets the stage for a Fitch's masterful shifts in time and perspective. Josie Tyrell, an artist's model and denizen of the punk rock, had an intense relationship with Michael, but never managed to free him from his mother, renowned concert pianist Meredith Loewy, who moves in a bleak, loveless world of wealth and privilege. Yet their very different loves for Michael bring about a surprising alliance between the imperious Meredith and Josie, a white trash escapee whose inborn grace, style and sense of self sustain her-along with art, music and alcohol. The two find unexpected comfort in each other's shared loss, allowing Fitch to contrast the inner and outer resources of women whose lives couldn't be more different, and to flash back deeply into their histories. Fitch excels at painting a negative personality with sure-handed depth and fairness, and her prose penetrates the inner lives of the two with immediacy and bite. In Josie, she has created an indomitable young woman whose pluck and growing self-awareness beautifully offset Meredith's emptiness. Their relationship transforms a big cliche-the artist's suicide-into a page-turning psychodrama. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Library Journal Review
Disavowing her sad-sack family, Josie ends up in Los Angeles-and in love with brilliant Michael, whose suicide leads Josie to out-and-out battle with his formidable mom. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
Leigh's nuanced, intuitive narration makes Fitch's novel even more powerful. Leigh brings out all the conflicting emotions and undercurrents of teenage punk rocker Josie as she struggles to deal with the suicide of her talented but emotionally tormented lover Michael. Leigh invests simple repeated lines like "Michael was never coming back" with different emotions each times: first she's trying to wrap her mind around the unthinkable, an urgent sense of panic, a burst of anger at the unfairness of life and at Michael for abandoning her, and finally a desolate sob of despair and loss. She ably evokes all the emotions of grief-the numbness and feeling of unreality, the rage, the sense of hopelessness, the longing for solace and normalcy. When reading Josie's dialogue, Leigh speaks in the low, wary tone of a girl who's been kicked around by life too many times. In contrast, she reads Michael's mother, Meredith, in confident, melodramatic, upper-class tones, her voice turning sinuous and seductive as she tries to manipulate Josie. In Leigh's capable hands, Fitch's compelling psychological character study resonates even more strongly on audio. Simultaneous release with the Little, Brown hardcover (Reviews, June 19). (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Excerpts
Excerpts
Josie Tyrell, teen runaway and fledgling model/actress, thinks she's found her chance at real love and a greater world in Michael Faraday--artist and Harvard dropout, son of a renowned concert pianist--until the day she receives a call from the Los Angeles County Coroner, asking her to identify her lover's body. In the aftermath of Michael's suicide, Josie struggles to hold on to the world they shared. Compounding her grief and rage is Michael's pianist mother, Meredith Loewy, who returns to her native city with the news of her only son's death. Despite a fierce mutual enmity, the two women find themselves drawn into an eerie relationship reflecting equal parts distrust and blind need. Excerpted from Paint It Black by Janet Fitch All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.