New Arrival

I see a red door and I want it painted black, No colors anymore I want them to turn black…

Janet Fitch 的處女作 WHITE OLEANDER, 自 1999 年出版以來 , 已銷售 300 萬本 , 全球售出 24 國版權 . 不僅為 Oprah's Book Club 選書 , 2002 年更改編為電影上映 .

在讀者引項期盼五年後 , Janet Fitch 推出第二本小說 PAINT IT BLACK, 甫出版即登上紐約時報暢銷書榜 . 一本有關激情 , 初戀和失去之後尋得真我的故事 .

Paint It Black 描述二位女人失去她們共同所愛的一位男子 . Josie Tyrell 的男友 Michael 以自殺結束生命 , 因而與 Michael 的母親 Meredith 有更頻繁的往來 , 一位身為音樂會鋼琴家 , 關係複雜喜歡操縱一切的女子 . 從彼此互動和 Michael 死因的愈加懸疑 , Josie 不禁自問她是否真正認識 Michael. 與 Michael 的母親接觸愈密切 , Josie 發現 Michael 隱瞞了許多事 , 真相一一揭露 .

Summary
Josie Tyrell, art model, teen runaway, and denizen of LA's 1980 punk rock scene, finds a chance at real love with art student Michael Faraday. A Harvard dropout and son of a renowned pianist, Michael introduces her to his spiritual quest and a world of sophistication she had never dreamed existed. But when she receives a call from the Los Angeles County Coroner, asking her to identify her lover's dead body, her bright dreams all turn to black.

"What happens to a dream when the dreamer is gone?" is the central question of PAINT IT BLACK, the story of the aftermath of Michael's death, and Josie's struggle to hold onto the true world he shared with her. As Josie searches for the key to understanding his death, she finds herself both repelled and attracted to Michael's pianist mother, Meredith, who holds Josie responsible for her son's torment. Soon, the two women find themselves drawn into a twisted relationship reflecting equal parts distrust and blind need.

Passionate, wounded, fiercely alive, Josie Tyrell walks the brink of her own destruction as she fights to discover the meaning of Michael's death.

作者 About the Illustrator
Janet Fitch was born in Los Angeles , a third-generation native, and grew up in a family of voracious readers. As an undergraduate at Reed College , Fitch had decided to become an historian, attracted to its powerful narratives, the scope of events, the colossal personalities, and the potency and breadth of its themes. But when she won a student exchange to Keele University in England , where her passion for Russian history led her, she awoke in the middle of the night on her twenty-first birthday with the revelation she wanted to write fiction. "I wanted to Live, not spend my life in a library. Of course, my conception of being a writer was to wear a cape and have Adventures." http://literati.net/Fitch/

國外書評

The Buffalo News gives PAINT IT BLACK a rave, calling it "riveting. . . . In some ways, PAINT IT BLACK is a young lover's version of Joan Didion's The Year of Magical Thinking -- with the sudden loss, although fictional in PAINT IT BLACK , just as searing."

The Cleveland Plain Dealer gives PAINT IT BLACK by Janet Fitch a great review: "Fitch writes with verve; there is nothing less than a stellar sentence in this novel. Her emotional honesty recalls the work of Joyce Carol Oates, her strychnine sentences the prose of Paula Fox."

PAINT IT BLACK by Janet Fitch is given a great review in the Baltimore City Paper . "Fitch's baroque sense of detail is amazing . . . the entire book is suffused with a sense of gilded decay of body and soul, and it's wonderfully done . . ."

An excellent lead review in the Los Angeles Times kicked off pub week for PAINT IT BLACK by Janet Fitch . "Absorbing. . . . Fitch has a gift for lush prose and rich, evocative descriptions, particularly of Los Angeles . . . . Janet Fitch has created a dark, crooked beauty that fulfills all the promise of WHITE OLEANDER and confirms that she too is an artist of the very highest order."

The Boston Globe describes PAINT IT BLACK as "Surprisingly compelling, suspenseful, and occasionally powerful."

"A knockout," raves the Rocky Mountain News in a review of PAINT IT BLACK . "Fitch resurrects the city [ Los Angeles ] in all its subterranean, gritty glory. . . . The dynamic between the women is fascinating. . . . Fitch narrates the novel in rich, raw language. . . . PAINT IT BLACK is a mesmerizing novel. . . . The emotional landscape she creates is just as rich, peopled by characters that buzz off the page, crackling with despair and determination."

In a four star review, People calls PAINT IT BLACK by Janet Fitch "a rewarding story of power and grace."

The Washington Post "Media Mix" gives PAINT IT BLACK a B+. "The author's early 1980s Los Angeles --land of punk rock and privilege--is made all the more absorbing by her incisive metaphors and naked emotion."