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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.
- Sales Rank: #25340 in Books
- Color: Black
- Brand: Back Bay Books
- Published on: 2000-05-01
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.33" w x 5.50" l,
- Binding: Paperback
- 480 pages
- Great product!
Amazon.com Review
Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1999: 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 mold 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
From Publishers Weekly
Thirteen-year-old Astrid Magnussen, the sensitive and heart-wrenching narrator of this impressive debut, is burdened with an impossible mother in Ingrid, a beautiful, gifted poet whose scattered life is governed by an enormous ego. When Ingrid goes to prison for murdering her ex-lover, Astrid enters the Los Angeles foster care program and is placed with a series of brilliantly characterized families. Astrid's first home is with Starr, a born-again former druggie, whose boyfriend, middle-aged Ray, encourages Astrid to paint (Astrid's absent father is an artist) and soon becomes her first lover, but who disappears when Starr's jealousy becomes violent. Astrid finds herself next at the mercy of a new, tyrannical foster mom, Marvel Turlock, who grows wrathful at the girl's envy of a sympathetic next-door prostitute's luxurious life. "Never hope to find people who will understand you," Ingrid archly advises as her daughter's Dickensian descent continues in the household of sadistic Amelia Ramos, where Astrid is reduced to pilfering food from garbage cans. Then she's off to the dream home of childless yuppies Claire and Ron Richards, who shower her with gifts, art lessons and the warmth she's been craving. But this new development piques Ingrid's jealousy, and Astrid, now 17 and a high school senior, falls into the clutches of the entrepreneurial Rena Grushenka. Amid Rena's flea-market wares, Astrid learns to fabricate junk art and blossoms as a sculptor. Meanwhile, Ingrid, poet-in-prison, becomes a feminist icon who now has a chance at freedomAif Astrid will agree to testify untruthfully at the trial. Astrid's difficult choice yields unexpected truths about her hidden past, and propels her already epic story forward, with genuinely surprising and wrenching twists. Fitch is a splendid stylist; her prose is graceful and witty; the dialogue, especially Astrid's distinctive utterances and loopy adages, has a seductive pull. This sensitive exploration of the mother-daughter terrain (sure to be compared to Mona Simpson's Anywhere but Here) offers a convincing look at what Adrienne Rich has called "this womanly splitting of self," in a poignant, virtuosic, utterly captivating narrative. Reading group guide; author tour. (Apr.) FYI: An excerpt from the novel was selected as a notable story in Best American Short Stories 1994.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This novel will surely be hailed as one of the best novels of the year and is likely the best debut this reviewer has ever read. When beautiful, egotistical poet Ingrid murders the lover who dumped her, 12-year-old daughter Astrid descends into the hells of foster care, where she is sustained only by a fierce intelligence and great artistic talent. Shot and left for dead by her first mother, half-starved in a mansion by another, turned into a drudge by a racist, she nearly finds happiness and mutual love with Ron and Claire; but then Claire kills herself. Shopping with them, Ingrid wonders who would want a black (Christmas) tree, but I knew someone woulda belated Halloween, to decorate with plastic skullsor just for the pleasure of making their kids cry. Heartbreaking, but without a trace of sentimentality, this novel provokes amazement that children like Astrid can emerge whole and capable after what we know are even worse childhoods than hers.Judith Kicinski, Sarah Lawrence Coll. Lib., Bronxville, NY
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Most helpful customer reviews
93 of 96 people found the following review helpful.
Incredible, hypnotic, seductive, I couldn't put it down.
By A Customer
White Oleander simply touched me more than almost any novel I have ever read. Astrid was a realistic character. Anyone who thinks that this novel was extreme and melodramatic in its portrayal of foster care obviously knows nothing of foster care or displaced children from disfunctional homes. Having worked in inpatient psychiatric units with both children and adults in state custody, I am well aware of how realistic Janet Fitch's book was.The things that happened to Astrid happen to children every day in this country. In fact reality is a little worse. The novel also presented the fact that we all recieve blessings and curses from our parents. Ingrid was a sociopath who did whatever she felt like doing regardless of who got hurt. She ruthlessly dominated her child's life "I am your home" and seemed to feel justified in doing so. However she also was a brilliantly educated poet who passed on the gifts that helped Astrid to survive her years in foster care: strength, independence, and a love of learning, a sharp intellect. I saw Astrid as a survivor who was as together as anyone could be after 6 years in foster care. In life, and in White Oleander, there is no happily ever after, and there are always loose ends. Fitch made me laugh and cry with her liquid poetry. A testement to survival.
106 of 116 people found the following review helpful.
Awesome Book!
By Nancy Hochman
I could not put this book down! "White Oleander" was wonderful from the very first sentence to the very last and I have Oprah to thank for bringing author Janet Fitch to my attention. The story is narrated by Astrid - a teenage girl - who suffers through years of living in the foster care system while her mother Ingrid serves a life sentence for murdering her ex-lover. (I can just envision a younger Angelina Jolie-type playing the role of Astrid in the film version.) Each family that Astrid lives with has its own unique (yet sometimes cliched) cast of characters that are instrumental in shaping and transforming the young woman she becomes. This is a novel of self discovery the hard way. I personally cannot imagine the loneliness and terror that Astrid experienced while bouncing from home to home to home. Ingrid stays present in Astrid's unstable life through letters and occasional visits and their strained relationship is key to Astrid's development. The character are so real, the writing style is beautiful, the plot moves swiftly and the story weaves the reader through every human emotion possible. While I'm not a fan of the Oprah Winfrey show, I am a fan of her book club and this novel ranks up there as one of her best picks.
46 of 51 people found the following review helpful.
A Magnificent Piece of Modern Literature
By Tracey A. Nettell
While Oleander is a beautiful and lyrical piece of contemporary literature with a storyline and cast of characters like nothing I have ever read. It is the story of the incredibly complex relationship between a self-absorbed "free spirit" and the daughter who wants nothing more than to be loved unconditionally as a child should be. When Ingrid is jailed for murder, so starts the long and rocky journey of Astrid as she moves from foster home to foster home. Few people will go through in their entire lifetimes what this child experiences throughout her early teenage years. Her journey is difficult but the author keeps her readers engrossed until the very end. This is a wonderful book and I sincerely hope the upcoming movie does it true justice.
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