Janet Fitch
1 book analyzed
Biography
Janet Fitch (born 1955) is a Los Angeles native who spent over a decade writing White Oleander before its publication in 1999. She studied history at Reed College and holds an MFA from the Bennington Writing Seminars. White Oleander was her first novel, published when she was forty-three — an unusually late debut for a literary career of this magnitude. The novel's selection for Oprah's Book Club catapulted it to bestseller status and brought literary fiction about the foster care system to a mass audience. Fitch has spoken extensively about her research process, which included interviews with foster youth, social workers, and family court professionals. She lives in Los Angeles, and the city's landscape — oleander-lined freeways, desert edges, Hollywood neighborhoods, industrial wastelands — is as much a character in the novel as any person.