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White Oleander: A Novel Paperback – September 1, 2001
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLittle, Brown and Company
- Publication dateSeptember 1, 2001
- Dimensions4 x 1 x 6.5 inches
- ISBN-109780316182546
- ISBN-13978-0316182546
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Product details
- ASIN : 0316182540
- Publisher : Little, Brown and Company; 0 edition (September 1, 2001)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 9780316182546
- ISBN-13 : 978-0316182546
- Item Weight : 8 ounces
- Dimensions : 4 x 1 x 6.5 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #1,576,090 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #66,093 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
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About the author

Janet Fitch was born and raised in Los Angeles, a third generation Angelino, and attended Reed College in Portland, Oregon, graduating with a degree in history, specializing in Russian Studies. She attributes much of her storytelling ability to her training as an historian. She was a 2009 Likhachev fellow to St. Petersburg, Russia, a Helen R. Whiteley Fellow at the University of Washington Friday Harbor Labs, a research fellow at the Huntington Library, Pasadena, and a Moseley Fellow in Creative Writing at Pomona College,
The best-selling author of the novels White Oleander, Paint It Black, The Revolution of Marina M. and the upcoming Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, Fitch also regularly teaches fiction writing at the Squaw Valley Community of Writers summer workshops, and has taught creative writing in the MPW program at the University of Southern California, Vermont College of Fine Arts’ full residency MFA in Writing and Publishing, UC Riverside Low-Residency MFA program, Pomona College, UCLA Extension, and the Esalen Institute. Her short fiction and essays have appeared in Los Angeles Noir (Akashic Press), Black Clock, Vogue, Real Simple, A Room of Her Own, Black Warrior Review, Rattling Wall, the Los Angeles Times, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and many other publications.
Fitch currently lives in Los Angeles, in the hills where Rena Grushenka's girls picked trash in White Oleander. More news and information can be found at her website: www.janetfitchwrites.com.
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The audiobook is narrated by Oprah Winfrey. She does a wonderful job. But the story is abridged. And I found conclusions near the end of the audiobook didn’t have a frame of reference. So I went back to the original text. And was glad I did. The physical book is much richer in detail and depth of characters.
The agents were right. This is an amazing novel, not just for the outrageous but believable character of Ingrid Magnusson and her daughter Astrid, not just for the amazing plot twists and turns, but for the amazing prose style.
"What was the best day of your life?" she asked me one afternoon as we lay on the free-form couch, her head on one armrest, min on the other. Judy Garland sang on the stereo, "My Funny Valentine."
"Today," I said.
"No." She laughed, throwing her napkin at me. "From before."
I tried to remember, but it was like looking for buried coins in the sand. I kept turning things over, cutting myself on rusty cans, broken beer bottles hidden there, but eventually I found an old coin, brushed it off. I could read the date, the country of origin.
It was when we were living in Amsterdam."
What a great use of metaphor and simile. Here is another example.
And now it was too late. I looked at Sergei across the table in Rena's kitchen. He could care less about my boyfriend in New York. He didn't even care about his girlfriend in the next room. He was just like one of Rena's white cats - eat, sleep, and fornicate. Since the night I'd seen them together on the couch, he was always watching me with his hint of a grin, as if there were some secret we shared.
"So how is your boyfriend?" he asked. "Big? Is he big?"
Niki laughed. "He's huge, Sergei. Haven't you heard of him? Moby Dick."
Olivia had told me all about men like Sergei. Hard men with blue veins in their sculpted white arms, heavy-lidded blue eyes and narrow waists. You could make a deal with a man like that. A man who knew what he wanted. I kept my eyes on the broccoli and cheese.
"You get tired of waiting," he said. "You come see me."
"What if you're no good?" I said, making the other girls laugh.
"Only worry you fall in love Sergei," he said, his voice like a hand between my legs.
What's not to like about this book? The ending. I really didn't like it. I didn't like being left with two choices, two ways that this heartbreaking story might go. I thought that the author should have done that hard work for me. Four stars.
This lovely, meandering epic coming of age story concerns Astrid and her mother Ingrid, who has been imprisoned for murder. Astrid goes through a handful of foster homes and all of the dysfunction that it entails.
At times this book is moving, at other times shocking, it ultimately attempts to answer the question: why and how do mothers and daughters relate to each other? The depth of the writing is amazing for a "first" novel (Janet Fitch had actually been writing for at least a decade before this book was published).
The only part I found a bit distracting was Astrid, the narrator's habit of needing to make even mundane details sound poetic. I suppose it was done for effect, to show the way she thinks, but it was at times tiresome. Of course, at other times, it was lyrical and beautiful and the prose soared.
The subject matter can be shocking, as it includes explicit sexual descriptions, drug use and violence. it is never gratuitous, however, as it is intended to be an accurate portrayal of foster home life.
There are many, many messages here, as Fitch is ambitious and covers a lot of themes- loneliness, sex, mothers and daughters,class issues, the racial divide and how women are treated in modern culture. Los Angeles as a setting is the third most important character in the book.
Astrid's mother writes to her:
"The best you'll ever do is to understand yourself, know what it is that you want, and not let the cattle stand in your way."
And Astrid thinks: "I hated my mother but I craved her."
Complex.
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