Promotional Information

* London Underground 4-sheet poster campaign at prime sites throughout November * National press advertising in the GUARDIAN and INDEPENDENT * Separate Scottish and Irish advertising in the SCOTSMAN and IRISH TIMES * Poster and 18-copy display bin with custom header plus 2 free copies * Review coverage in the national press and women's magazines * Submitted for major trade promotions * Reading copies available * Featured on the Virago website

About the Author

Janet Fitch's fiction has appeared in A Room of One's Own, Black Warrior Review and Rain City Review, among other publications. She lives in Los Angeles.

Reviews

'Hard-hitting, compelling and brilliantly written' COSMOPOLITAN 'Graceful' THE TIMES 'Poignant, virtuosic and utterly captivating' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'Extraordinary ... Her prose is full of startling images, snippets of poetry and one magnificent, blisteringly angry "found" poem. This highly impressive debut takes on all the big themes' OBSERVER 'Tangled, complex and extraordinarily written' OBSERVER

'Hard-hitting, compelling and brilliantly written' COSMOPOLITAN 'Graceful' THE TIMES 'Poignant, virtuosic and utterly captivating' PUBLISHERS WEEKLY 'Extraordinary ... Her prose is full of startling images, snippets of poetry and one magnificent, blisteringly angry "found" poem. This highly impressive debut takes on all the big themes' OBSERVER 'Tangled, complex and extraordinarily written' OBSERVER

Thirteen-year-old Astrid Magnussen, the sensitive and heart-wrenching narrator of this impressive debut, is burdened with an impossible mother in Ingrid, a beautiful, gifted poet whose scattered life is governed by an enormous ego. When Ingrid goes to prison for murdering her ex-lover, Astrid enters the Los Angeles foster care program and is placed with a series of brilliantly characterized families. Astrid's first home is with Starr, a born-again former druggie, whose boyfriend, middle-aged Ray, encourages Astrid to paint (Astrid's absent father is an artist) and soon becomes her first lover, but who disappears when Starr's jealousy becomes violent. Astrid finds herself next at the mercy of a new, tyrannical foster mom, Marvel Turlock, who grows wrathful at the girl's envy of a sympathetic next-door prostitute's luxurious life. "Never hope to find people who will understand you," Ingrid archly advises as her daughter's Dickensian descent continues in the household of sadistic Amelia Ramos, where Astrid is reduced to pilfering food from garbage cans. Then she's off to the dream home of childless yuppies Claire and Ron Richards, who shower her with gifts, art lessons and the warmth she's been craving. But this new development piques Ingrid's jealousy, and Astrid, now 17 and a high school senior, falls into the clutches of the entrepreneurial Rena Grushenka. Amid Rena's flea-market wares, Astrid learns to fabricate junk art and blossoms as a sculptor. Meanwhile, Ingrid, poet-in-prison, becomes a feminist icon who now has a chance at freedomÄif Astrid will agree to testify untruthfully at the trial. Astrid's difficult choice yields unexpected truths about her hidden past, and propels her already epic story forward, with genuinely surprising and wrenching twists. Fitch is a splendid stylist; her prose is graceful and witty; the dialogue, especially Astrid's distinctive utterances and loopy adages, has a seductive pull. This sensitive exploration of the mother-daughter terrain (sure to be compared to Mona Simpson's Anywhere but Here) offers a convincing look at what Adrienne Rich has called "this womanly splitting of self," in a poignant, virtuosic, utterly captivating narrative. Reading group guide; author tour. (Apr.) FYI: An excerpt from the novel was selected as a notable story in Best American Short Stories 1994.