Janet Fitch is an excellent author in a specialized arena. Part of her gift is in regaling, darker emotions and impetuosity. I've yet to decide whether it is by a scary coincidence or direct complement that her other writing forté is on female relationships and the feminine psyche involved.

Her characters primarily consist of two women characters. One is a young flower that will spiral out of control due to unrelenting misfortune. The air is bitter and there is another woman, a maternal character interacting as a major source of conflict.

In "Paint it Black," the young woman is a white trash nobody turned poor model who finds Mr. Perfect. Unfortunately, her rich, handsome, genius boyfriend kills himself. Alone and in despair, she has nothing to cling to except for his deranged mother. The result is an interesting dynamic where they spitefully realize that they keep each other afloat.

My major dilemma with Janet Fitch is that after reading both "Paint it Black" and "White Oleander," I cannot tell them apart. The plots are the same. The characters are the same. My personal suggestion would to read one or the other aforementioned novels.

Nonetheless, Janet Fitch reinvented the satanic maternal figure with poignant clarity. This is not a story that takes you simply from Point A to Point B. Instead, you experience a myriad of emotion and landscapes alongside the characters. Pick one title and do read a Janet Fitch novel. ( )

(unabridged audiobook read by Jen Taylor): The story opens with Josie Tyrell waiting for her artist boyfriend Michael, who left a week before to hole up in his mother's empty house and work on a painting. Just as she is beginning to wonder if he'd run off with another woman, the coroner calls. Michael was not at his mother's house, not working on a painting at all. In reality, he had driven to a motel and shot himself. From then on out it is nonstop grief. This is a book I'm not sure I would have enjoyed on paper, but Taylor's narration is absolutely brilliant. She captures the confusion, anger, and despair of Josie and Michael's mother Meredith, as well as the mystery of Michael himself (in flashbacks), without ever sounding melodramatic or tiresome. Without her touch, I'm not sure I would have been able to stand such endless misery. But it's only the subject matter that would be difficult to read. Fitch, as always, uses language like a paintbrush. The writing is simply beautiful, even when describing ugly things. Her unabashed love for poetry and art is present again here, as it was in White Oleander; likewise with the independent daughter/powerful mother dynamic. But the story is far from a repeat. And while I enjoyed it, I would have appreciated a little more plot - this was more of a slice-of-life story about Josie going through the stages of grief than a series of interelated events. I also wish the ending had been a touch more conclusive, but in a way the openness gave it more of a feeling of real life, where nothing ever ends. Quibbles aside, I was really touched by this book. Josie and Michael and Meredith and everyone were like real people whose lives I wanted to know more about. I will definitely be on the lookout for more books by Fitch. ( )

"Paint it Black" is Janet Fitch's powerful and compassionate novel of two women trying to get on with their lives in the wake of young Michael Faraday's suicide. Their shared lives and the ultimate divergence of their approaches to Michael's end make up the story.

Josie, the innocent from Bakersfield, is the lover Michael leaves behind, and our main protaganist. Her mix of internal dialog, recollection, and drug-addled guilt and grief make up much of the story. Ms. Fitch's handling of all this shows her great strength. She lets Josie's lament play itself fully out, believably, slowly, doggedly. In someone else's hands, this would not even have been published, but it's sustained and evolving, and true to life in Ms. Fitch's balanced and inevitable-seeming prose.

We also meet Meredith, Michael's aggrieved mother, a world-class classical pianist, who is outraged at Michael's leaving Harvard and falling in with Josie in L.A. After all, she's a runaway punk from Bakersfield. Meredith is at first quite hostile toward Josie, but she comes to depend on her and to cling to her as a last remnant of her departed son. She opens her home to Josie when she needs it most, and eventually invites Josie to come to Europe with her on her concert tour. Before she consents to first-class travel and five-star accommodation, though, Josie feels the need to travel to the motel on the edge of nowhere where Michael killed himself. She finds answers there, at the motel ironically called "Paradise," and another young woman who knew Michael only long enough to fall in love with him, and who is also deeply afflicted by Michael's death.

This difference between Meredith and Josie shows in high relief: Meredith wants to run to Europe, with its adoring crowds and flattering men, while Josie wants to follow Michael's path as far is it goes - she owes him that. And there she finds this other girl, with less Michael-history than Josie has, and opens up her home and the the opportunities of Los Angeles to her. Meredith runs, wanting to get away; Josie runs too, but toward the calamity, and eventually finds the answers to urgent questions.

This is compelling, life-affirming stuff. I admire Ms. Fitch's skill with a tricky subject. I'm very glad I picked this up, and I'm sure you will be, too. ( )

I've never read grief so raw, so harsh, and so true. Every fear, every hate, every guilt, every rage...this book takes you through it all. The story itself was inconsequential. What mattered, and what will stick with me, is the emotion. It was dark. It was depressing. It was haunting. And yet at the very end, there was a spark, a chance. The end of zero and the beginning of one. Which is as real as it gets. ( )

Set in Los Angeles during the punk rock scene of the 1980s, this novel features Josie Tyrell, a white-trash runaway who makes ends meet by working as an artist's model and occasional actress in student films. She begins dating and living with Michael Faraday, an aspiring artist who turns out to be the son of famous concert pianist Meredith Loewy and writer Calvin Faraday. When Michael commits suicide, Josie and Meredith are drawn together despite their obvious dislike of each other and their very different world views, each attempting to hold onto their version of Michael and to understand what prompted him to take his life. The book is filled with sex and drugs and shows how grief affects people in different ways. Very dark and vivid writing, but difficult going from an emotional standpoint and neither Josie nor Meredith is a particularly likable or sympathetic character. ( )