White Oleander: A Novel (Oprah's Book Club) - Softcover

Fitch, Janet

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0316284955 ISBN 13: 9780316284950

Publisher: Back Bay Books, 2000

Synopsis

Everywhere hailed as a novel of rare beauty and power, White Oleander tells the unforgettable story of Ingrid, a brilliant poet imprisoned for murder, and her daughter, Astrid, whose odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes-each its own universe, with its own laws, its own dangers, its own hard lessons to be learned-becomes a redeeming and surprising journey of self-discovery.

About this title

Review

Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, White Oleander, has a mother who is as sharp as a new knife. An uncompromising poet, Ingrid despises weakness and self- pity, telling her daughter that they are descendants of Vikings, savages who fought fiercely to survive. And when one of Ingrid's boyfriends abandons her, she illustrates her point, killing the man with the poison of oleander flowers. This leads to a life-sentence in prison, leaving Astrid to teach herself the art of survival in a string of Los Angeles foster homes.

As Astrid bumps from trailer park to tract house to Hollywood bungalow, White Oleander uncoils her existential anxieties. "Who was I, really?" she asks. "I was the sole occupant of my mother's totalitarian state, my own personal history rewritten to fit the story she was telling that day. There were so many missing pieces." Fitch adroitly leads Astrid down a path of sorting out her past and identity. In the process, this girl develops a wire-tight inner strength, gains her mother's white-blonde beauty, and achieves some measure of control over their relationship. Even from prison, Ingrid tries to mould her daughter. Foiling her, Astrid learns about tenderness from one foster mother and how to stand up for herself from another. Like the weather in Los Angeles--the winds of the Santa Anas, the scorching heat--Astrid's teenage life is intense. Fitch's novel deftly displays that, and also makes Astrid's life meaningful. --Katherine Anderson

Review

Graceful (THE TIMES)

Poignant, virtuosic and utterly captivating (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY)

However good the film version, starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Renee Zellwegger, it won't beat Janet Fitch's reissued novel White Oleander. (‘)

Liquid poetry is how Oprah Winfrey described it. (IN STYLE UK)

About this edition

• Publisher: Back Bay Books
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 0316284955
• ISBN 13: 9780316284950
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 480