White Oleander

Janet Fitch

Sep 2006 · Hachette Audio · Narrated by Oprah Winfrey

About this audiobook

The unforgettable story of a young woman's odyssey through a series of Los Angeles foster homes on her journey to redemption.
Astrid is the only child of a single mother, Ingrid, a brilliant, obsessed poet who wields her luminous beauty to intimidate and manipulate men. Astrid worships her mother and cherishes their private world full of ritual and mystery - but their idyll is shattered when Astrid's mother falls apart over a lover. Deranged by rejection, Ingrid murders the man, and is sentenced to life in prison. White Oleander is the unforgettable story of Astrid's journey through a series of foster homes and her efforts to find a place for herself in impossible circumstances. Each home is its own universe, with a new set of laws and lessons to be learned. With determination and humor, Astrid confronts the challenges of loneliness and poverty, and strives to learn who a motherless child in an indifferent world can become. Oprah Winfrey enjoyed this gripping first novel so much that she not only made it her book club pick, she asked if she could narrate the audio release.

Ratings and reviews

This book is pretty close if not the same as my life story it's like looking in a mirror for me although it wasn't just my mother it was my family and foster families that did horrible things to me I can relate to this book in so many ways it literally makes me cry my face off. This book helped me stay strong, taught me that there was always light at the end of the dark times in my journey. I'm 30 now and I'm a survivor. I survived. This book is beautiful in it's own ways it helped me find peace

About the author

Janet Fitch is the author of the novels White Oleander (Little Brown, 1999), an Oprah Book club selection translated into 24 languages and made into a feature motion picture, Paint It Black (Little, Brown 2006), also widely translated and made into a feature film, and The Revolution of Marina M. (Little, Brown 2017) set during the years of the Russian Revolution. A fourth novel completing Marina's story, Chimes of a Lost Cathedral, will be published by Little, Brown in summer 2019. Fitch lives in her hometown of Los Angeles with her writer husband Andrew Nicholls.