To Live and Write in L.A.

PW Talks to Janet Fitch

by Kris Coyne -- Publishers Weekly, 6/19/2006

Janet Fitch's 1999 novel, White Oleander, went from Oprah pick to the big screen in three years. Now, with Paint It Black (p. 37), Fitch revisits the punk L.A. of her youth—with a further twist on family dynamics.

So, there's life after Oprah and Renée Zellweger?

How 'bout that.

But you've returned to some of the same themes, including the mother-daughter relationship....

I think the dynamic between women is very interesting. Although friendships are explored quite a bit in fiction, relationships where the power is unequal between women is something that's not explored as much.

Could Josie, an artist's model, have been a man and gotten the same things from her boyfriend, the painter Michael, and from Meredith, his mother?

I think the model could have been a man. But I think that for a woman, especially a woman who for all of her life has been treated such that the most important part of herself is her physicality... to have someone pull something out of her that is intellectual, that is spiritual... I think that's a more profound experience. I don't know that men would experience surprise at being seen as something other than physical. Maybe that is a peculiarly female experience.

Would you then characterize both books as coming-of-age books?

I would. The first one I always thought of as my Portrait of the Artist as a Young Girl. Paint It Black is also coming-of-age, or, you know, maturing. But I always thought of it as The Fall of the House of Usher, set in 1981 punk-rock L.A.

What's it like to be a writer in Los Angeles? Is there a community? Do you seek out other writers there?

There's a wonderful community—there are several interlinked communities. But it's like the old Soviet Union, where the further you were from Moscow, the more freedom you had? Here, people aren't paying attention to us, so we get to know each other in a more collegial way. It's more relaxed. We're not as competitive with one another. Nobody really cares much about us, because we're not writing screenplays, and we don't get invited to the fancy parties.

Even after the movie?

Oh, yeah. I'm not a screenwriter, so I don't take meetings; I don't know those people. I know a few screenwriters, but mostly they're also fiction writers or great readers. I have a writers' group—we finished our books, but we met once a week. We would bring work and exchange it. Screenwriters can't do that. There's too much money at stake.