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by: Janet Fitch
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780316182744
ISBN: 0316182745
Label: Little, Brown and Company
Manufacturer: Little, Brown and Company
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: September 18, 2006
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Sales Rank: 189842
Studio: Little, Brown and Company
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
From the bestselling author of White Oleander, a powerful story of passion, first love, and a young woman's search for a true world in the aftermath of loss.
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. With the luxurious prose and emotional intensity that are her hallmarks, Janet Fitch has written a spellbinding new novel about love, betrayal, and the possibility of transcendence.
Amazon.com Review:
Following the huge success of White Oleander, where Janet Fitch portrayed the coming-of-age of Astrid, a young girl placed in foster care after her mother murders a former lover and goes to prison for life, she has once again created an indelible portrait of a young woman in Paint it Black. Josie Tyrell is a teenage runaway, an artist's model, and an habitué of the '80s LA punk rock scene. She is a white trash escapee from Bakersfield, having left a going nowhere life there. Now, sex, drugs and rock n' roll inform her days and nights. Paint it Black is the perfect title choice because Josie's lover is never coming back, as the song says.
Josie meets Michael Faraday, son of concert pianist Meredith Loewy and writer Calvin Faraday, long divorced. He is everything that she is not: refined, wealthy, well-traveled, brilliant by fits and starts. He is also a Harvard dropout, leaving school so he can paint; his new obsession. He refuses help from his mother, who is furious about his decision to leave school, but it doesn't bother him to have Josie working three jobs to support them. He is given to black moods, frozen in amber by his perfectionism, contemptuous of those who do not agree with him about art and life. Josie adores him. One day much like any other, he leaves their house, saying that he is going to his mother's so that he can paint in solitude. Instead, he goes to a motel in 29 Palms and shoots himself in the head.
What follows is days of watching Josie in a near fugue state from grief, drugs, booze, and going over and over her love for Michael, trying to grasp how he could do what he did. After all, didn't they share the 'true world,' Michael's characterization of their cocoon of love and exclusivity?
Meredith calls her and says, 'Why are you alive? What is the excuse for Josie Tyrell? I ask you.' Ultimately, they form a tenuous relationship, because all that is left of Michael lives in the two women. Josie even lives with Meredith for a while. When Meredith is ready to go on tour again, she asks Josie to go to Europe with her. Before she can do that, she must go to 29 Palms and try to understand, finally, why Michael's depression pushed him over the edge. That puzzle is not solved, nor can it be, but the end of the story is a hopeful, upbeat, new beginning. Janet Fitch has beaten the curse of the sophomore slump with this dynamite second novel. --Valerie Ryan
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - I've stopped caring.
I totally agree with everything the "one star" reviews said about this book! Ok I get it, Josie. You're small, pretty, ...whorish. Yes and your little brat boyfriend killed himself...and his mother is moody...blah blah blah. Your car is a piece of crap, you go to punk clubs, you cry alot, every little thing reminds you of Michael and you spend 2 freaking pages describing it, just before devoting another 4 pages to more of the same. I've been skipping pages 2 or 3 at a time, scanning for something ... Read More
Rating:  - Depressing... but good
This book was beautifully written, and you can slip into the voice of the character most effortlessly. It's a book that months after reading I still recall passages and images from frequently. This book was so enchanting that I didn't want to put it down, and didn't want it to end, but I related so closely with the main character that I actually became depressed reading it!
Regardless, a great book from a great writer, but certainly not a light read.
Rating:  - Paint It Black: A Short Review
Paint It Black: A Short Review of Janet Fitch's Novel
Having read and enjoyed White Oleander by Janet Fitch I suspected that her novel, Paint It Black (Back Bay Books, Little, Brown & Company) would be a good read also. I was correct. I am reading slower than I used to. Perhaps it is the underlining and the marginal notes slowing me down, but I thoroughly enjoyed the novel. I've always loved stories about art, artists, musicians, and writers, and maybe that's why I was attracted ... Read More
Rating: - Not Worth The Time
It was almost impossible to finish this book. I didn't find any of the characters interesting and didn't care what happened to them. The book was filled with pages of mundane details that just felt like they were there to fill up space. I was really looking forward to this book, but it was a disappointment.
Rating: - Raw and charged with emotion
This is a truly beautiful book.
You feel every weighted emotion Josie goes through, your heart taken by a hold so strong that you almost understand what it would feel like for your one true love, the one thing you cherished most, to commit suicide unexpectedly. How do you put together the pieces of a world fallen apart?
But the real basis of this story is passionate and unwavering love. A love the guides you in the understanding of life and the people that make ... Read More
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