Chances are pretty good that in the course of your lifetime you have either read, seen, or otherwise become familiar with the work of Janet Fitch, author of White Oleander. Well here pretty recently I stumbled upon Fitch's newer book, Paint It Black and frankly I was deeply disappointed and wished I could essentially "unread" it.
Paint It Black tells the story of Josie Tyrell and her romance with Michael, son of famous piano player Meredith Loewy(?), bouncing around between the aftermath of his suicide and memory flashes of the strained relationship they had. Throughout the course of the book, Josie finds herself tied to Meredith in a sort of "I will manipulate you to get what I want and yet I genuinely care about you" relationship. There becomes a power struggle of sorts over who knew Michael more, and the secrets revealed are many and varied, which admittedly will keep the reader turning the page whether they want to or not.
Seems like a decent enough plot, and indeed this is what led me to read the book in the first place. The problem however is that a good 80 percent of the book is simply about the character asking why this happened.....and never is this question directly answered. The book simply states that it happened because his life was just to unbearable. To which I say, well there's a generic answer; such is the umbrella reason for the majority of suicides. The other 20 percent of the book is spent dancing around whether or not Meredith and Micheal's relationship was.....shall we say a bit more than motherly. And sadly, this is another part of the plot that is never answered in black and white (pun sincerely intended).
Perhaps the largest problem is that it is painfully obvious the author has gotten lazy in her writing. Meredith manipulation and Josie's emotions are almost carbon copies of Ingrid and Astrid from White Oleander, but without the flow and passion that made White Oleander such an instant work of genius. Michael himself not only has no voice in the book, but seems a dull placeholder at best. The writing is dry, over-exaggerated, and to be honest unrealistic. Josie, though not hard to identify with, to me seems to have no real substance, and this could be because the novel is told from a third person instead of first person point of view.
If you are a fan of Janet Fitch, I highly recommend bypassing this one. Fitch's talent far surpasses what we are shown here, and I would hate to see one novel go unread after the sheer disappointment of this one.
