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. ( )

I was a bit confused by some of the "punk" ideas and scene since that wasn't an area that I was ever exposed to or around. Reading more about the book now, after having read the book, certain things start to make a little more sense, knowing that the story is set in the 1980's, some story elements fall into place. However, it's not that I didn't care for the book but quite the opposite. I don't think I have ever read a book that described loss and grief in a way that touched me quite like this one did. I understand that the elements of creativity and death at times are so interwoven that it is difficult to separate the two. Add to the mix a story that is one part emotional thriller and one part psychological fiction and you have this story; while parts of it were difficult for me to stomach not physically but emotionally. ( )

This is a great moving story. Fitch's prose is breathtaking. Looking forward to more from Fitch.... ( )

A beautiful little pill. ( )

Gave up on p. 226! ( )

Fitch's follow-up to White Oleander blew me away. I found the characters complex, yet realistic, and her voice throughout the novel was creatively strong. With some books, White Oleander included, I find myself zoning out through paragraphs or even pages! But with Paint it Black, I was engrossed the entire time. ( )

A look at how survivor's cope with suicide. Fitch handles the topic without the least bit of sentimentality. Warning: This book will make you want to smoke cigarettes and drink heavily just to give the characters some company. ( )

I really started to like this book, as gritty as it was, but for some reason, I read a review on here that complained about there being too much detail and I scoffed. Too much detail?! Yeah right! But sadly, around page 200, I got caught up in the fact that there was too much detail, not enough action, to the point where the words bogged me down from caring to finish the rest of this book! I remember I enjoyed White Oleander but that was a completely different type of book. Oh well..next! ( )

fitch's second effort is almost as good as her first, shaky on the history of the 80's in spots but good. ( )

About young girl who falls in love with a boy who is very attached to his mother and commits suicide. ( )

Fitch writes with beautiful detail...however, after the first 150 pages the detail becomes monotonous and hinders the advancement of the plot. ( )

This book is so very intense. Ms. Fitch does an eerlily incredible job at pulling you so far into the character's pain that it causes you to become depressed. I am not even done reading this novel but the way it's written, it can't possibly go wrong. Al though I do questin where this is all going. This haunting novel is beautifully written. ( )

Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Fitch follows her bestselling debut, White Oleander, by revisiting the insidious effects of a powerful, narcissistic mother on an only child. Michael Faraday is a Harvard dropout who paints in the L.A. art world of 1981; his suicide happens a few pages in, and sets the stage for a Fitch's masterful shifts in time and perspective. Josie Tyrell, an artist's model and denizen of the punk rock, had an intense relationship with Michael, but never managed to free him from his mother, renowned concert pianist Meredith Loewy, who moves in a bleak, loveless world of wealth and privilege. Yet their very different loves for Michael bring about a surprising alliance between the imperious Meredith and Josie, a white trash escapee whose inborn grace, style and sense of self sustain her—along with art, music and alcohol. The two find unexpected comfort in each other's shared loss, allowing Fitch to contrast the inner and outer resources of women whose lives couldn't be more different, and to flash back deeply into their histories. Fitch excels at painting a negative personality with sure-handed depth and fairness, and her prose penetrates the inner lives of the two with immediacy and bite. In Josie, she has created an indomitable young woman whose pluck and growing self-awareness beautifully offset Meredith's emptiness. Their relationship transforms a big cliché—the artist's suicide—into a page-turning psychodrama. ( )