Paint It Black By Janet Fitch

Paint It Black

By Janet Fitch

First came White Oleander, Janet Fitch's earliest successful novel, and then came Paint It Black, a tale no less mesmerizing. The story is set in the 80's Punk scene in LA and follows a young girl named Josie Tyrell as she copes with the suicide of the only person that she ever truly loved. Josie was just white trash before Michael Faraday entered her life. He read her poetry, taught her how to dream, and filled her with a light that she never knew existed, but then it was gone, and she was left in the dark, alone.

Josie try's to cope with the pain through drugs and alcohol, she try's burying herself in her work and running from the pain, but it just leads to a series of dead ends. She misses Michael and hates him for leaving her. Soon she finds their relationship was riddled with lies, she learned Michael was not only using paint to create scenes, but he also illustrated a very detailed life for himself. He was not exactly who he made himself out to be, but he was still the boy who stole her heart.

Throughout the book Josie encounters Meredith Loewy, Michael's mom. Meredith despised Josie when Michael was alive, and not much changed afterwards. Meredith is hollow inside, and Josie can see that, but for some reason she is drawn to the powerful, rich pianist. She respects her, fears her, and pity's her. Josie is all Meredith has left, and like it or not, Meredith Loewy is all that is left of Michael. Josie struggles in an inner conflict, should she befriend this beautiful older woman that so reminds her of Michael, or should she stay away from the void of Meredith Loewy, where lovers are lost?

The passage I chose is in the very beginning. Josie has just gotten a call from the LA police department. They ask her to come down to the morgue to identify a body of a boy registered as Oscar Wilde. Josie had thought Michael was at his mother's house, painting. She knew he needed his space when he painted and hadn't called for a while. Little did she know, Michael was sitting in trashy motel room in Twentynine Palms preparing to put a bullet through his brain.

The doors opened and right there, against the gray wall, against a busted water fountain, on a gurney, lay a human form under a white sheet. She held Pen's arm, or was Pen holding hers, and the smell was different from anything she had ever smelled before, dirty, like lf meat and Inspector Brooks was saying, "He's not going to look like the photos all right? I'm going to lower the sheet now."

He folded back the sheet. The body lay wrapped in another one, a knot like a rose at the chest, the arms folded in, the head covered, there was blood on the sheet. Don't look at that, don't look, only the face. The bruised eyes, bruised mouth, the lips dark as if he'd