false 32234 40 <b>Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1999:</b> Astrid Magnussen, the teenage narrator of Janet Fitch's engrossing first novel, <I>White Oleander</I>, 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. <p> As Astrid bumps from trailer park to tract house to Hollywood bungalow, <I>White Oleander</I> 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. <I>--Katherine Anderson</I> 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 1223333 1999 White Oleander total:24045|5:6121|4:9062|3:6538|2:1831|1:493| 24045 90622 28499 1858 5 26 false false Fri Feb 15 13:05:04 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 16 10:40:12 -0800 2008 Oleander was chosen for Oprah's Motherfu...more...]]> 3 15 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Nov 26 18:50:11 -0800 2007 Mon Nov 26 19:45:33 -0800 2007 more...]]> 1 11 false false Mon Jan 14 09:30:07 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 14:18:06 -0800 2008
some observations:

1) astrid. the novel's protagonist, a fourteen year old girl, is a thoroughly ...more...]]> 4 5 false false Sun Jan 13 23:13:37 -0800 2008 Wed Jan 16 01:28:31 -0800 2008 1 6 false false Mon Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Sun Jun 10 17:51:03 -0700 2007 Sun Jun 10 17:53:13 -0700 2007 5 5 false false Sat Aug 18 06:58:05 -0700 2007 Sat Aug 18 07:00:02 -0700 2007 5 3 false false Wed Feb 13 14:27:20 -0800 2008 Sat Feb 16 07:49:39 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 15 07:03:55 -0700 2007 Thu Jun 28 17:30:27 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 2 false false Tue Sep 02 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 13:23:03 -0700 2008 Wed Sep 03 13:37:36 -0700 2008 more...]]> 1 2 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 21:48:01 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 20 21:51:54 -0800 2008 more...]]> 1 4 false false Wed Jul 09 19:46:35 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 26 12:45:23 -0700 2008
This book almost made me give up reading all together. It is definitely the last book I trusted from Oprah. I still think she owes me money and those days of my life back.
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Astrid is the daughter of Ingrid Magnussen. Ingrid is a self-absorbed poet who falls in love with a cheap-suit wearing man. I have to say that this was the start of the unbelievability for me. When a woman thinks...more...]]> 3 3 false false Wed Sep 03 16:10:54 -0700 2008 Sun Sep 07 07:42:20 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 true false Tue Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 09:48:05 -0700 2008 Thu Jul 10 10:14:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 2 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Fri Jan 11 00:42:43 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 11 11:18:29 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Mon Aug 20 17:09:03 -0700 2007 Mon Aug 20 17:14:09 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Jul 23 07:48:08 -0700 2007 Wed Aug 08 07:12:08 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Jan 30 00:00:00 -0800 2002 Sat Jan 24 10:20:49 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 24 10:26:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 1 true false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 21 10:41:32 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 21 10:53:05 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Fri Aug 29 08:51:28 -0700 2008 Fri Aug 29 08:56:33 -0700 2008
My BIG problem with White Oleander is that I was working on my novel, got into a graduate program based on the first four chapters, then went to a different grad school for poetry instead, scrapped novel-writing for a while--and then White Oleander comes...more...]]>