WHITE OLEANDER: A NOVEL by JANET FINCH

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This novel will surely be hailed as one of the best novels of the year and is likely the best debut this reviewer has ever read. When beautiful, egotistical poet Ingrid murders the lover who dumped her, 12-year-old daughter Astrid descends into the hells of foster care, where she is sustained only by a fierce intelligence and great artistic talent.

Heartbreaking, but without a trace of sentimentality, this novel provokes the amazement that children like Astrid can emerge whole and capable after what we know are even worse childhoods than hers. - Judith Kicinski, Library Journal, April 15, 1999

...[an] impressive first novel.... her startlingly apt language relates a story that is both intelligent and gripping. The New York Times Book Review, Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina.

Now a major motion picture!