Most Popular Books by Janet Fitch

The unforgettable story of a young woman''s odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes on her journey to redemption. Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery - but their idyll is shattered when Astrid''s mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid''s journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become. Oprah Winfrey enjoyed this gripping first novel so much that she not only made it her book club pick, she asked if she could narrate the audio release.

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

A young Russian woman comes into her own in the midst of revolution and civil war in this "brilliant" novel set in "a world of furious beauty" (Los Angeles Review of Books). After the loves and betrayals of The Revolution of Marina M., young poet Marina Makarova finds herself alone amid the devastation of the Russian Civil War -- pregnant and adrift, forced to rely on her own resourcefulness to find a place to wait out the birth of her child and eventually make her way back to her native city, Petrograd. After two years of revolution, the city that was once St. Petersburg is almost unrecognizable, the haunted, half-emptied, starving Capital of Once Had Been, its streets teeming with homeless children. Moved by their plight, though hardly better off herself, she takes on the challenge of caring for these orphans, until they become the tool of tragedy from an unexpected direction. Shaped by her country''s ordeals and her own trials -- betrayal and privation and inconceivable loss -- Marina evolves as a poet and a woman of sensibility and substance hardly imaginable at the beginning of her transformative odyssey. Chimes of a Lost Cathedral is the culmination of one woman''s s journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century -- the epic story of an artist who discovers her full power, passion, and creativity just as her revolution reveals its true direction for the future.

From the mega-bestselling author of White Oleander and Paint It Black, a sweeping historical saga of the Russian Revolution, as seen through the eyes of one young woman. St. Petersburg, New Year''s Eve, 1916. Marina Makarova is a young woman of privilege who aches to break free of the constraints of her genteel life, a life about to be violently upended by the vast forces of history. Swept up on these tides, Marina will join the marches for workers'' rights, fall in love with a radical young poet, and betray everything she holds dear, before being betrayed in turn. As her country goes through almost unimaginable upheaval, Marina''s own coming-of-age unfolds, marked by deep passion and devastating loss, and the private heroism of an ordinary woman living through extraordinary times. This is the epic, mesmerizing story of one indomitable woman''s journey through some of the most dramatic events of the last century.

A fifteen-year-old girl draws back from the false glamour of Los Angeles street life when an oft envied childhood friend becomes sexually promiscuous and overdoses on drugs.

Wanneer haar moeder wegens moord een levenslange gevangenisstraf moet uitzitten, groeit een tienermeisje in Californië op in verschillende pleeggezinnen.

Astrid is the only child of single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery - but their idyll is shattered when Astrid''s mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid''s journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become.

Josie Tyrell, een model en filmactrice van eenvoudige komaf, denkt met kunstenaar Michael Faraday de ware liefde gevonden te hebben. Michael is de zoon van een gerenommeerde concertpianiste en de kleinzoon van een legendarische componist. Door haar relatie met Michael gaat er voor Josie een wereld open waar ze voorheen alleen van had kunnen dromen. Haar wereld wordt abrupt verstoord als Michael op een dag, schijnbaar zonder enige aanleiding, zelfmoord pleegt. Michaels moeder verergert Josies verdriet en woede, maar ondanks hun heftige vijandigheid en wederzijds wantrouwen voelen de twee vrouwen zich tot elkaar aangetrokken door hun gedeelde verlies. In Portret in zwart vertelt Janet Fitch het aangrijpende verhaal van een moeizame relatie waarin talloze verschillen en hindernissen moeten worden overwonnen voordat een vriendschap kan ontstaan.

"More than editor, Peggy Dobreer has served as an expert midwife to this collection of poems that emerged from her daily guided meditations and integrated writing prompts. Slow Lightning is the result, born at the height of the pandemic and culled from over two thousand of these poems crafted in this setting with unflinching candor, innovative storytelling, and mastery. A deeply satisfying array of poetry to be deeply savored." -- Stephen Reigns, author of A Quilt for David. CONTRIBUTORS: Dakota Raine Baynham - Maria Berry - Maggie Bloomfield - E.J. Bouinatchov - Diane Sherry Case - Lisbeth Coiman - Brendan Constantine - Peggy Dobreer - Darothy Durkac - Alicia Elkort - Erika Lane Enggren - Janet Fitch - David Francis - MaxieJane Frazier - Mia Goldman - Jacinta Camacho Kaplan - Muriel Karr - Katherine Lansing - Ruthie Marlenée - Roberta H. Martínez - Carrie Nassif - David J Orr

A Café in Space has been the only literary journal devoted to novelist/diarist Anais Nin since 2003. This anthology represents the contents of the fifteen annual issues, including previously unpublished diary entries and correspondence by Nin; previously unpublished correspondence by Henry Miller, Rupert Pole, Alfred Perles and Hugh Guiler; articles by Nin/Miller/Durrell scholars and aficionados Janet Fitch, Ruth Charnock, Anita Jarczok, James M. Decker, Benjamin Franklin V and many others; poetry, art, photography and short fiction; a complete index of all the contributions since the inception of the journal in 2003. Edited by Paul Herron.

A Los Angeles girl whose mother goes to jail is taken in hand by the city''s foster-care program and the novel describes her experience in a series of homes, each a new adventure.

A bestselling first novel about a young woman growing up the hard way, this is a powerful story of mothers and daughters, their ambiguous alliances, and the search for love and identity. When a woman murders a former lover and is imprisoned for life, her daughter must navigate a new reality--that of a series of foster homes, each its own universe, each with its own limits and dangers.